Can editions of Bach or Scarlatti be entirely trusted?

In depending for their editing work on printed or MS copies preferably contemporary with the composer concerned, music editors over the last couple of centuries have
gone through several phases in their approach to the job, phases varying from massive intervention to virtually none . Both can result in some difficulty for the player, not least because in practice any method of editing tends to fall between the two, the proportion between them reflecting changes in fashion.

Peter Williams looks at modern editions in general, what happens when the composer's copy is lost, and contemporary copyists' assumptions, in this article from the RCO Journal of 2007.

 

 

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