When Günter Henle founded his Urtext publishing company in 1948 he began his catalogue with a two-volume edition (HN 1 and HN 2) of Mozart’s 18 piano sonatas. These sonatas remain part of the core repertory of every pianist. In the intervening decades both volumes have been revised several times in order to keep pace with the current state of research.
Piano music occupies a small, but nevertheless musically important place in Janácek’s oeuvre. Our edition of "In the Mists" by the seasoned Janácek editor Jirí Zahrádka is an impressive example of this. The small cycle was composed in 1912 and first published the following year. But as was so often the case, Janácek was prompted to revise it.
Haydn’s piano sonatas are indispensable in the moderately difficult piano repertoire – not just because of their sheer playability, but also because of their humour and inventiveness. Besides several easy individual movements, our volume also includes two complete sonatas so that the performer can experience the broader dramatic trajectory of a multi-movement work.
Johann Sebastian Bach is more or less the alpha and omega of piano playing: there is hardly a piano pupil who did not start off with his little preludes or his inventions. And almost all pianists regard his Well-tempered Clavier as an unsurpassed highpoint in the history of piano music