G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
Completed in 1912 and published already that same year, these Three Etudes op. 65 are assigned to Scriabin’s final creative period. Tonally, they arguably number among the composer’s most original and visionary works. Marked by the intervals of the ninth, seventh and fifth as musical building blocks, they skirt the border to atonality – and in doing so sound not only modern and virtuoso, but also exceptionally colourful and at times downright sensual. Scriabin himself, it is reported, could not even perform the first etude of op. 65. His hands were not large enough to adequately play the procession of ninths that flit swiftly across the keyboard in a ghostly pianissimo. These effective pieces thus pose many a pianistic challenge for performers. The fingerings suggested by Scriabin expert Boris Giltburg in the Henle Urtext edition offer valuable assistance.
