Josef Gabriel Rheinberger. Complete Works

Published by the Josef Rheinberger Archive Vaduz

The Rheinberger Complete Edition, initiated by the director of the Rheinberger-Archiv in Vaduz, Harald Wanger, and by Günter Graulich, founder of Carus-Verlag, in 1987, laid the foundation for the increasing popularity which Rheinberger's works are enjoying in the international world of music. The Rheinberger Complete Edition is published under the auspices of the Principality of Liechtenstein.

Rheinberger did not give an opus number to every work for which he had found a publisher, he carefully separated occasional pieces and juvenilia from the compositions with opus numbers, as can be seen from his handwritten catalogues of his works. In view of this decision by the composer, the Rheinberger Complete Edition is restricted to the publication of all the works with opus numbers. Representative works without opus numbers will appear separately or in supplementary volumes.

In the case of Rheinberger the situation regarding source material is satisfactory. The musical estate which he left at his death survived the two world wars and most of it is preserved in two locations: the Rheinberger-Archiv in the composer's birthplace Vaduz, and the Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the city in which he lived and worked from the age of 12 until his death. The majority of his original music manuscripts are in the Munich library, together with contemporary first editions, handwritten catalogues of his works, his wife Fanny's diaries, and six sketchbooks.

For the Complete Edition all available sources have been studied. The musical text is based largely on the first editions which the composer himself prepared for publication. Mistakes and inaccuracies in the printed copies of many of his works have been corrected following careful comparison with the original autographs and performance parts, copies for engraving, and sketches. A particular editorial problem concerns phrasing slurs, which are often to be found placed differently and unclearly in various sources. The Critical Report in each volume gives a detailed account of the sources and the differences between them. Editorial additions are clearly identified in the musical text, so that decisions between different readings can be made with reference to the detailed notes in the Critical Report.