OKM publishers
Fundamental Principles
- Our domain is orchestral music as transcribed for piano, winds and string instruments.- We publish arrangements which are technically clear and informative, and which will permit the accurate re-creation the orchestral sound.
Researched Urtext Editions
- We publish urtext editions, scientifically valid versions of the original texts, based on recent research.- The sources for an urtext edition include the autograph manuscripts produced in the composer's hand, hand copies made by the composer's students and assistants, the first published edition, and other early editions.
- Since first editions often include misprints, a particularly valuable source for urtext editions is a copy of the first edition that was hand-corrected by the composer, as we have used for the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto which will appear before the end of 2008.
- Where the sources are few, or misprint-ridden, or conflicting, the task of the urtext editor becomes difficult. Cases where the composer had bad penmanship, or revised the work after publication, likewise create difficulties.
Variant Readings
- A fundamental problem in urtext editing is how to present variant readings. If the editor includes too few variants, this restricts the freedom of the performer to choose. Yet including unlikely variants from patently unreliable sources likewise serves the performer badly.- We have decided to include everything that would be needed for a contemporary performer, and typically also added the transcriptions for concert performances representing the famous music traditions of the Russia.
- We always make visible that our recommendations are separate from those of the composer and easy to distinguish.
- Where the editor must go farthest out on a limb is in identifying misprints or scribal errors. The great danger - not at all hypothetical - is that an interestingly eccentric or even inspired choice on the composer's part will be obliterated by an overzealous editor. Responsibly, we identify with footnotes all places where the notes have been altered in any way.
Conclusions
- As cellist Dimitry Markevitch has said, "An ideal [urtext] edition cannot be achieved, only an honest one can be the goal."- But most musicians today would judge that the process should begin with the most faithful version of the composer's intent that scholarship can master.
- We hope that teachers will continue to seldom recommend interpretive editions to their students, preferring urtext editions.
Endorsement
- Performers Misha Maisky, Vladimir Mischouk, Sergei Stadler, Mikhail Gantvarg and, of course, Victor Kuleshov.- Conductors Yuri Temirkanov and Nikolay Alexeev.