Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi SWV 435 = Christmas Story / Heinrich Schütz; ed. Bettina Varwig. - (New Schütz Edition)
- Submitting institution
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University of Cambridge
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2814
- Type
- R - Scholarly edition
- DOI
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- Title of edition
- Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi SWV 435 = Christmas Story / Heinrich Schütz; ed. Bettina Varwig. - (New Schütz Edition)
- Publisher
- Bärenreiter
- ISBN
- 9790006497652
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This edition of Schütz’s 'Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi' replaces the 1955 edition (also Bärenreiter) from the Complete Works series. Knowledge of sources of the 'Historia' as well as editorial practice have evolved significantly since 1955. One of the work’s key sources had been displaced in World War II and became accessible again only in 2001, as part of the rediscovered archive of the Sing-Akademie Berlin. The new edition evaluates and incorporates this source for the first time. Findings gleaned from this Berlin source necessitated reassessment of the other existing sources (in Berlin and Uppsala), generating new insights into the work’s chronology, style and instrumentation.
Significant questions about approaches to editing ensued, since it now became clear that the work’s disparate sources represented alternate versions. Rather than conflate the available sources into the semblance of a unified text (as was the practice in past editions), Varwig decided to lay out the alternate versions separately, giving the reader access to the work’s multiple possible identities. Further, since the piece’s opening section survives only in the form of a basso continuo part, the edition presents this movement in fragmentary form, rather than modern reconstruction, in line with its objective to present a text that stays as close to the sources as possible.
Varwig’s 'Introduction' to the edition extends to related issues of reconstruction, editorial responsibility and the ontology of such historical "works", along with a clear exposition of the edition’s policies and choices based on these broader reflections. Finally, it seeks to offer a potential template for grappling with similar kinds of challenges in future editorial projects.
A performing edition of the work is currently in preparation.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
