Mehrsprachigkeit in Musikeditionen

The problem of multilingualism in musical editions has hitherto been scarcely considered although in practice it is not infrequently met with. Since translations usually call for musical adjustments, the possibilities of multilingual presentation are limited; more than two languages cannot be clearly represented side by side.

The fact that even this possibility is often disregarded is due to a notion of authenticity which seems scarcely appropriate with regard to the phenomenon of translation. Thus, Gottfried van Swieten’s own English translation of his text to the oratorio The Creation has, indeed, been included in the main text of the complete edition Joseph Haydn Werke, for it had been prepared by the author himself, yet Giuseppe Carpani’s Italian translation, highly valued by van Swieten and Haydn, was discounted, although Haydn himself had directed a performance of this version. Similarly, Johann Otto Heinrich Schaum’s German translation of Haydn’s opera L’isola disabitata (Italian original by Pietro Metastasio) was banished to the appendix, even though Haydn had gone through the piano reduction Schaum had sent to him, amending in several places the positioning of the text, in some instances even correcting melodic features. Only a more substantial extent of compositional changes, as, for instance, those carried out by Christoph Willibald Gluck for the French version of Orfeo, seems to provide the indisputable requirements for inclusion in a complete edition.

But if one does not generally want to dismiss ‘plain’ original translations in critical editions – and from the historical as well as the present point of view there is a lot to commend the inclusion –, a higher degree of authorisation than a close perusal or a performance by the composer himself is scarcely conceivable, since translations are assignments which are typically performed by a third party, namely, as in the instances mentioned above, by a native speaker. The adherence solely to the original author is a restriction which would at least hold the risk to favour inferior quality to an assumedly pre-eminent authorial intention. Instead of this, the translator is to be added as a third originator to the original duo of authors.

In traditional print editions difficulties of presentation may be minimised by additional ossia-staves; the mere printing of the text in the appendix should be relinquished, since this form of presentation is unsuitable for the purposes of musical realisation. For the future the encoding language MEI promises enlarged prospects. These will be discussed in the concluding section by using The Creation as example. Here, the 1801 edition of Haydn’s pupil Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (with French and Italian text), which was discounted by the complete edition, but for which Haydn obviously granted the exclusive French rights to Pleyel, would have to be included.

Prof. Dr. Christine Siegert Musikwissenschaft (GW I) Universität Bayreuth D-95440 Bayreuth

Tel.: +49 (0)921 55-5031 E-Mail: Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.