About Ourselves
Considerations concerning a new edition of Schubert's complete works date back to the 1950s. The project was actually initiated by Wolfgang Rehm and supported by Otto Erich Deutsch and Walter Gerstenberg. Due to the economic and cultural boom of the period, "the hour of the complete edition" had come after all (thus the title of a programmatic essay by the publisher Karl Vötterle, which was printed in 1956). The work on many new editions started at that time, among them the New Bach Edition (1951), the New Mozart Edition (1953), the Haydn Complete Edition (1955), and the Beethoven Complete Edition (1959).
The history of the NEW SCHUBERT-EDITION begins on 19 November 1963. On the 135th anniversary of Franz Schubert's death, the International Schubert Society was founded, whose only task is to ensure the edition of the complete works of Franz Schubert. Room for editorial offices and staff has been provided by the musicological department of the University of Tübingen. The edition is being printed by Bärenreiter (Kassel). There is branche office at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna – most relevant sources can be found in the libraries of this "city of music."
The work on the NEW SCHUBERT-EDITION began in the spring of 1965. Surrounded by a festive act, the first volume (Symphonies I) was presented to the public in Vienna on 29 January 1968. By now (September 2010) 58 of proposed 83 volumes have been published, some of them by external contributors. According to the present state of planning, the project will presumably terminate in 2016.
The editing guidelines of the NEW SCHUBERT-EDITION were established when the first few volumes went into print. The fifth version of these (from 1993) is published together with the guidelines of most of the other german editions: Editionsrichtlinien Musik, im Auftrag der Fachgruppe Freie Forschungsinstitute in der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung herausgegeben von Bernhard R. Appel und Joachim Veit (= Musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten 30), Kassel 2000, S. 287-304.
(Translation: Kilian Eckle)
