"My angel, my all, my self". with these words Beethoven, in July 1812, began his passionate love letter to a woman whose identity has eluded discovery to the present day. Was he perhaps addressing the same woman four years later when he composed "An die ferne Geliebte", his song cycle on poems by Alois Jeitteles?

Barry Cooper discusses this and many other questions in the Introduction to his new edition of Beethoven's only song cycle. Not only does he present a meticulously edited musical text, he also delves into questions of performance practice that previous critical editions have overlooked.

What did Beethoven want?

Many amateurs find his handwriting difficult to read, and even professionals need considerable experience to decipher his autographs. Yet a composer of the stature of Ludwig van Beethoven deserves that every last detail be extracted from his manuscripts and from all other available sources.

The film “Searching for the True Beethoven: Bärenreiter Urtext Editions” offers insight into how Beethoven editions are created. Its protagonist is Jonathan Del Mar, a leading Beethoven scholar who has devoted much of his life to the study of this composer. In the film, he explains how he carries out his editorial work so that conductor Sir Simon Rattle, pianist Igor Levit, and the Pierrot Quartet can interpret and perform Beethoven’s music as the ingenious composer intended. These musicians also appear in the film, demonstrating how exciting it is to incorporate Del Mar’s scholarly work into their performances.

'Urtext'. The very word smacks of dusty libraries and crumbling manuscripts that have to be handled with kid gloves. But behind the idea of 'Bärenreiter Urtext' are people passionately devoted, then and now, to living music. People who consider music a necessity of life, not a decorative adjunct.

All composers, whether a servant to a higher realm like Bach, or a genius like Mozart who composed faster than he could write, or a rebellious hero like Beethoven, have a precise idea of what their creations should sound like. But circumstances may have conspired to alter those creations or to detach them from their original idea.

Musicologists invest their every effort to reconstruct the intentions of the composer from the surviving sources. In a painstaking process of comparison, evaluation, decision-making and verification, they produce a version that will then appear in print and on the music stands of concert halls, opera houses or one's own living room.

Finally, musicians need a reliable basis for their art. No one who has studied the great works of music history will trust slipshod editions. Only the very best is good enough for the geniuses of the past.