McCorkle: Johannes Brahms
Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis
Whoever needs information on the compositional history of Johannes Brahms’ musical works as well as on the transmission of their sources will simply not be able to disregard this catalogue of works (in German). Since its publication in the mid 1980s, it has been considered to be the irrefutable, reliable reference work. Its author, the Canadian Margit McCorkle, has received several awards for this magnum opus including the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Once Ms McCorkle had completed her epic work on Brahms, she immediately went on to dedicate over ten years of her life to the works of another 19th century master: Robert Schumann (HN 2204).
About the Authors
Margit L. McCorkle (Editor)
The musical career of Margit L. McCorkle, who was born in America but is Canadian by choice, began with the piano, fortepiano and harpsichord at the University of Maryland. After completing her doctorate in musicology, she married Donald M. McCorkle, Professor of Musicology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada (whose research focus was the music bibliography of Johannes Brahms). Together they began work on a Brahms Catalogue of Works. Following Donald McCorkle’s death in 1978, Margit McCorkle carried on the project alone, which was published by G. Henle Publishers in 1984 as Brahms’ “Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis”.
In the late 1980s McCorkle was commissioned to prepare the “Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis” for Robert Schumann together with the Robert Schumann Research Centre in Düsseldorf; this catalogue was published in 2003 as part of the New Schumann Complete Edition (Akio Mayeda and Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller) by G. Henle Publishers and Schott Music. Over the past few years Margit McCorkle has increasingly engaged in doing translations of musicological texts, including ones for the Robert Schumann and the Carl Maria von Weber Complete Editions.