Symphonie Nr. 3 F-Dur opus 90 (review)

In 1983, Robert Pascall noted (in his “The Publication of Brahms’s Third Symphony: A Crisis in Dissemination,” in Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives: Papers Delivered at the International Brahms Conference, Washington, DC, 5–8 May 1983, ed. George S. Bozarth, 283–94 [Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990]) that the first published editions of Brahms not infrequently were carelessly proofread, and are therefore not altogether reliable as sources. Seemingly unaware of that fact, the editors of the (first) Sämtliche Werke (Ausg. der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, ed. Hans Gál and Eusebius Mandyczewski, 26 vols. [Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, pref. 1926–27]) relied heavily, though not exclusively, on those first publications. The Neue Ausgabe, fortunately, relies on a much wider range of sources to produce a text that is much closer to the composer’s intentions.

In the case of Brahms’s Symphony no. 3 in F Major, this involves fourteen sources (as against just three for the first Werke in 1926). They include different states of the Simrock (first) edition, overlapping or conflicting lists of corrigenda, various sets of parts, and transcriptions. In his 1983 essay on the Third Symphony, Pascall provided a basic filiation of sources for the work, but now supplies a considerably-expanded stemma that reveals much about the transmogrification of this symphony. Simrock’s first published score of May 1884 contained a number of errors, due in part to the fact that Brahms, because of his travel schedule, probably did not proofread the score and parts. The detection of errors began almost immediately. There were already discrepancies between the score and the parts used in early performances. Brahms himself, Robert Keller (Simrock’s editor), and Eusebius Mandyczewski all provided lists of errors and discrepancies. In the case of Keller’s list, Pascall counts 275 errors in the score and 672 in the parts. In September 1884, Simrock printed a three-page list of 52 corrigenda in the score and 225 in the parts. In addition, there are several piano arrangements of the symphony: Brahms’s own for 2 pianos-4 hands (in both autograph and edition), Keller’s for piano-2 hands, Keller’s for piano-4 hands, and another for 2 pianos-8 hands. Each has its idiosyncrasies. As Pascall noted, not only in the F-Major Symphony but also in many of Brahms’s compositions, “no definitive text, in a unified state, exists, because during the process of publication both revision and deterioration of the text occurred concurrently” (Brahms Studies, 293).

Thus the Third Symphony is virtually a poster child for the New Brahms Edition. Both Pascall and G. Henle Verlag have done a magnificent job on this volume. Pascall’s introduction (in German only) provides a detailed account of the symphony’s genesis, its performance history, and early reception. The Kritischer Bericht is thorough, and as impeccable as any human effort is likely to be. Also included are fourteen facsimile pages of Brahms’s autograph, two of the first Simrock edition, and one of the published score which Brahms gave to Mandyczewski.

The layout of the score itself is one of the most attractive I have seen. It is open and spacious (136 pages as opposed to 86 pages in the 1926 Werke), and the typefaces are easy to read. One detail which conductors will appreciate is the barring of parts by instrumental families, rather than the continuous barring of the earlier Werke (actually two sets of bar lines: strings, and others). Both Brahms’s autograph and the Simrock edition barred the families separately, a practice which should not...