Intermezzi op. 4; Two Piano Sonatas; Novelletten op. 21

Ed. H. J. Köhler Peters

 

For those interested in textual studies, these detailed editions are exemplary and essential. In so wide a perspective as Schumann piano music, there must always he scope for a variety of viewpoints about questions of interpretation and expressive import. But when it comes to a general selection and exposition of relevant biographical data, a complete conspectus of collated source material, a precise account of textual variance, and finally a soundly established and clearly printed text, I do not believe that the work of Hans Joachim Köhler for Peters can be either seriously faulted now or significantly improved in the foreseeable future. The only real weakness (so tiresomely ubiquitous, so readily eradicable) is the English translation. which is often unidiomatic and sometimes quite incomprehensible without reference to the original German.

 

The Musical Times, Jun. 1981 (p. 400) © the estate of eric sams