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Klindworth's texture is more closely chromatic and it sounds better, the chromatic parallelism being more carefully preserved. Yet I fancy that Kullak has tradition on his side. The seventeenth prelude Niecks finds Mendelssohn-ian. I do not. It is suave, sweet, well developed, yet Chopin to the core, and its harmonic life surprisingly rich and novel. The mood is one of tranquillity.
Neat and precious copies of Klindworth's pianoforte score of Rheingold, as well as of some acts of the Walkure, lay ready to hand, and Baumgartner was the first who was set down to see what he could make of the atrociously difficult arrangement.
We also had a good deal of music together, as in Billow I had at last found the right man to play Klindworth's atrocious arrangement of my Nibelungen scores. But the two acts of Siegfried, which had only been written down as rough drafts, were mastered by Hans with such consummate skill that he could play them as if they had really been arranged for the piano.
Mikuli's edition, like Klindworth's, is fingered, and, as the title-page informs us, "for the most part according to the author's markings." In addition to these advantages he enjoyed the advice of M. Mathias, another pupil of Chopin. Klindworth's is a purely pianoforte edition, and excludes the trio, the pieces with violoncello, and the songs.
He is a friend of Klindworth's, and associates with your admirers and partisans. With Mason Brothers I have some connection through William Mason, one of my pupils, who lived eighteen months in Weymar. As far as I know, the firm is SOLID and respectable.
Besides there are op. 67 and 68 published by Fontana after Chopin's death, consisting of eight Mazurkas, and there are a miscellaneous number, two in A minor, both in the Kullak, Klindworth and Mikuli editions, one in F sharp major, said to be written by Charles Mayer in Klindworth's and four others, in G, B flat, D and C major. This makes in all fifty-six to be grouped and analyzed.
The great French singer, Madame Viardot Garcia, was asked on one occasion in a private circle to sing the part of Isolde. She took the score and sang it a prima vista to Klindworth's accompaniment. On being told that in Germany singers could not be found to undertake the part, alleging that it was too difficult and unmelodious, she naively asked whether German singers were not musical!
The latter is the preferable. Klindworth gives 72 to the half note as his metronomic marking, Riemann only 60 which is too slow while Klindworth contents himself by marking a simple Vivace. Regarding the fingering one may say that all tastes are pleased in these three editions. Klindworth's is the easiest.
The copy of the "Rhinegold" is quite ready, and I expect it back from London, together with Klindworth's arrangement. This therefore, would be at your disposal at once. Of the pianoforte arrangement of the "Valkyrie," the first two acts will be finished very soon; the third act I recently sent to Klindworth.
I prefer the Klindworth editing of this rather sombre, nervous composition, which may be merely an etude, but it also indicates a slightly pathologic condition. With its breath-catching syncopations and narrow emotional range, the A minor study has nevertheless moments of power and interest. Riemann's phrasing, while careful, is not more enlightening than Klindworth's.
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