What is the best music publisher for Rachmaninoff (solo piano pieces. I was thinking the preludes). I see that G. Henle Verlag doesn't publish any Rachmaninoff (if i'm wrong about that, please tell me).

The two editions of the Rachmaninoff Preludes I have are those published by Schirmer and by Peters, the latter being edited and with fingerings by Ruth Laredo. Incidentally, the engraving of the Schirmer edition of the Second Piano Concerto is identical in every respect to the edition published by A. Gutheil/Boosey & Hawkes, suggesting that Schirmer may have used the same plates as the Boosey & Hawkes edition.

Boosey & Hawkes has an "authentic edition, Revised 1992" of the Preludes.

I am not sure of the publishing history of the Warner Bros Publications of "The Piano Works of Rachmaninoff." I have Volume V in the series, "Sonatas 1 & 2" published by Warner Bros. Publications, and Volume VII, "Transcriptions," which is published by Alfred Publishing Co. Did Alfred take over Warner Bros? I don't know. In this series, the Preludes are complete in Volume I.

I found a couple of errors in the Peters/Laredo edition. I would say that Schirmer seems to be a safe bet, for a "good" edition; I'm not sure there is necessarily a "best" edition, although Boosey & Hawkes may be the most recently edited with their "authentic" label.

I would avoid the International Edition of anything they publish; they are notorious for errors in printing - in my experience.

Regards,

Dover's been good to me.

Dover can be good buys as far as price is concerned, and often their texts, though older, are quite reliable. In my experience my problem with Dover is the bindings; I've always had trouble with them not staying open on the music stand, no matter how kindly - or brutally - I treat them.

Regards,

I have the same problem. Most agree that Dover uses reliable sources, and my university teacher reccomended them for accuracy and low price....but in my experience they just refuse to stay opened. I even have a dover edition of Liszt's hungarian rhapsodies that says "New! lay-flat sewn binding!"....yet it is just as bad.

Yeh, almost all my dovers have fallen apart because of what I've had to do to get the binding to stay open. The very few that have not fallen apart are the 2 Debussy Assorted Pieces books.

Try the Alfred Editions - I can't vouch for their accuracy, though.

My Dover Chopin collection hasn't fallen apart yet (astonishingly!!!!), but is frayed at the top (from the pegs I use to keep it open...)

The current ne plus ultra is the ongoing critical edition published by Russian Music Publishing, and distributed by Barenreiter. So far, the Etudes-Tableaux and the Preludes have been issued. These are expensive clothbound books. But they are also releasing a more reasonably priced paper-bound urtext based on it. So far, I only see the ETs in this format at Boosey, but the Preludes and a volume of miscellaneous works are in preparation. I don't know the physical quality of the paperbacks, but the hardbound books are very nice indeed.

FWIW - I brought this new critical edition of op. 33 and op. 39 home from the library, and proofed my Dover op. 33 and my International op. 39 against it. The Dover had quite a few errors; the International had none at all. Yes, Bruce, I know that some International editions are bad (e.g., their Iberia), but this one is fine - and the binding is holding up well, too, although I don't much care for the paper or the heavy-duty print.

Whilst Russian Music Publishing and Barenreiter have committed to producing the critical edition, this project appears to have been stalled for a number of years. There have been no recent editions released. I've sent a number of emails to them to enquire about future publications, none of which have been answered so far.

I normally like Dover editions, but I had a bad experience with Dover's Serge Rachmaninoff: Complete Preludes and Etudes-Tableaux (ISBN 0486256960), which is a reprint of volumes from a publishing house in Moscow in the 1970s. This is a complete re-engraving looking nothing like the original editions, which isn't a problem provided the engravers do a good job...

In the fifth measure of the famous Prelude in C sharp minor Op.3 No.2, I saw silly D naturals instead of D sharps in the left hand. (We have two recordings from the composer confirming that the naturals are bogus.)

I noticed that the phrasing of one of the first pieces I looked at was obviously off, with some phrase marks ending one note too early or late, inconsistently between the staves in one passage, but consistently when the passage repeated, where everything made sense in the original edition.

In at least one other piece, the graphic arrangement of chordal passages was horrible; probably Op.39 No.5. Stubbornly splitting the staves so that the RH always plays the upper stave and the LH always plays the lower stave, making chords look physically far apart even though they are often close together, when the original edition was beautiful and clear and easy to read.

I donated the book to my local library a few days later, figuring that it was a slightly better option than putting it in the recycling bin.

I have this edition, and I recommend it highly. It's a reproduction of an early Gutheil edition (the one-volume edition of all 24 preludes together), with numerous corrections based on comparison with the autographs, Gutheil proofs corrected by the composer (for 18 of the 24 pieces), and the first separate editions of Op.3, Op.23, and Op.32. All significant variants are summarized in an editorial report.

For their 1992 edition, Boosey & Hawkes created new masters by photographing a mint condition copy of the Gutheil rather than reprinting from the old masters, which gives richer/darker and easier-to-read music in my opinion than all the other editions I have seen based on the Gutheil edition, including the earlier 1985 B&H edition.

Most of the corrections are things like missing accidentals, a couple of wrong notes, a couple of missing clef changes, and a few missing dots and rests, most of which are fairly obvious. However, others are more interesting, and are what I'd say makes this edition "like a Henle" and especially valuable.

All of the following are clear in the manuscripts but are missing or different in the Gutheil editions:

* Dynamic marks (in five different pieces)

* Two extra notes in chords in Op.23 No.4, giving richer, better-sounding harmonies in those places

* Very different ties in the LH in the middle of Op.32 No.1

* Tempo I indication misplaced by half a measure in Op.32 No.4

* veloce indication at the mini-cadenza in the RH in Op.32 No.5

* Directions on how to build from Meno mosso ppp to Allegro ff in Op.32 No.13

Also, the manuscript alignment of notes makes it pretty clear that some of the printed cross-rhythms in the last two pages of Op.32 No.13 were not intended to be cross-rhythms at all (which I always suspected).

Plus the editorial report summarizes the places where Rachmaninoff changed his mind in both the manuscripts and the proofs.


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I recommend Boosey & Hawkes for all of Rachmaninoff's piano works, including those for piano and orchestra. For example, their 2003 edition of the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini Op.43 is a digitally scanned and cleaned-up version of the original two-piano score with dozens of corrections (the original two-piano score has loads of mistakes when compared to the full score). Their 2006 edition of the Etudes-Tableaux has some clarifications and corrections to the original Gutheil edition, with a few footnotes instead of an editorial report. Their 1993 edition of the original and revised versions of the Piano Sonata No.2 Op.36 also has helpful footnotes where there are missing accidentals or ambiguous rhythms in the original editions.

I Just purchased the Boosey and Hawkes 1992 edition. It should be good.

Anyone have the Alfred Masterworks Editions? I need to buy a copy of the preludes and these editions seem nice. They usually have new typesetting that I like. I've used the Boosey and Hawkes edition and I don't like the print quality.

(As previously noted, newer Boosey&Hawkes have been improved. You could look again at those.)

I don't think there is the same level of controversy and question over Rachmaninoff as there is about some other composers. Yes some old editions (and probably new ones too) have mistakes, but the mistakes are not that many and not that bad. Sounds like things that can be discussed and corrected over coffee, rather than requiring whole new books.

I mostly use Boosey & Hawkes. Although I use Schirmer Editions very selectively (for example, for the Sauer edition of the Brahms' Short Pieces and the Joseffy edition of Liszt's "Annees de Pelerinage"), I have to say that Schirmer is quite good for Rachmaninoff, although I recall once finding a missing clef change. Kalmus was not highly regarded for quite awhile, but in more recent years their editions have improved.

although this isn't exactly relevant, but as we're talking about editions, i once purchased a Cortot edition of Liszt's 2nd polonaise and there were plenty of mistakes in it...almost as many as in his recordings!! haha i'm only joking, but there were lots of mistakes in the sheet music.
I'm sure the accompanying text that has various exercises for perfecting certain passages within the piece are very good (considering it's the great Cortot) but unfortunately it's all written in French!! agghh the irony of it!!

Oh, thanks. I didn't see that. I've been using an older version (not sure of the date) from my school's music library. I'll have to look and see if I can find the newer B&H.

For Rachmaninoff it doesn't matter, any will do. Unlike Beethoven or Chopin, when he submitted works, they were always in their finality and there were never textural debates afterwards. Even the fingering from edition to edition seems to always be the same...

...that being said I like Boosey and Hawkes because it makes me feel elite and cool