Symphony in D minor MWV N 15 (Reformation Symphony)
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Huddersfield
: A - Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies : A - Music
- Output identifier
- 57
- Type
- R - Scholarly edition
- DOI
-
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- Title of edition
- Symphony in D minor MWV N 15 (Reformation Symphony)
- Publisher
- Breitkopf & Hartel
- ISBN
- 9790004803516
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This is the first fully source-critical edition of the Symphony. It considers for the first time two recently discovered leaves removed from the autograph score, as well as two score copies which provide crucial insight into the various stages of revision. In the process, some major changes to our previous understanding of the work’s genesis are shown to be required, most notably that virtually all revisions to the score took place during the initial completion of the first version of the work in 1830, not in 1832 as had been assumed until now. This means that the ‘early version’ of 1830 postulated by scholars and performers is a philological fiction. The Symphony is a major work of the Romantic canon, and one that is deemed crucial both within the composer’s development and within the discourse on the nature of Romantic programme music, particularly since the composer later rejected and discarded the work as ‘interesting more through what it means than in and of itself’. In telling the full source-critical story of Mendelssohn’s work, this edition sheds crucial light on this discourse. Furthermore, the publisher has produced a conductor’s score and parts of the Symphony, and a number of performances have taken place using these resources, especially during the quincentenary of Luther’s Reformation in 2017. The edition follows the tried-and-tested methodologies of the most rigorous complete-edition projects through examination of all extant sources in their material and historical context. It is based on a full examination of all sources in the original, as well as a full evaluation of all previous editions and published research. It includes a substantial 12,000-word introduction describing the genesis, history and reception of the work, as well as (for the first time) full transcriptions of and a commentary on all drafts and deleted passages.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -