Editions
Handel's autograph score survives, with the Sinfonia and first recitatives missing, but is significantly different from the libretto which reflects changes made for the first performances. Handel's performing score is lost. Three early manuscript copies, probably dating from 1710, are held in Vienna; one of these may have been a gift from Grimani to the future Emperor Charles VI. These copies, presumably based on the lost performing score, show further changes from the autograph. A Manuscript from the 1740s known as the Flower score is "a miscellany in haphazard order".
In about 1795 the British composer Samuel Arnold produced an edition that agrees with the early copies; this edition, while it contains errors and inaccuracies, has been called "probably a reasonable reflection of early performances". The Chrysander edition of 1874 has a tendency to "sweep Arnold aside when he is right and follow him when he is wrong." Musicologist Anthony Hicks calls it "an unfortunate attempt to reconcile the autograph text with Arnold and the wordbook, the result being a composite version of no authority." It is widely available online.
In 1950 Barenreiter published Hellmuth Christian Wolff's edition, prepared for the 1943 Halle revival and reflecting the casting of basses for Otto and Narcissus, even when they sing what would otherwise be the alto part in the last chorus. It presents a German adaptation of the recitatives and written out embellishments for the da capo arias as well as numerous cuts. The B flat fugue G 37 appears as an act II overture along with other instrumental music.
The Hallische Händelausgabe volume devoted to Agrippina has not yet appeared.
Read more about this topic: Agrippina (opera)
Famous quotes containing the word editions:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)