Sonates pour violon, volume I

Mozart est l’un des rares compositeurs à avoir produit des œuvres exemplaires dans tous les genres musicaux. Grâce à ses tournées de concerts entreprises de bonne heure il a recueilli de multiples et diverses impressions musicales (Londres, Mannheim, l’Italie, Paris) qu’il a assimilées au cours de sa jeunesse et qui ont contribué à forger son langage musical jusqu’à son accomplissement.

© 2003, 2010 Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart

Dr. Wolf-Dieter Seiffert, born in 1959 in Frankfurt/M., read musicology, modern German literature, and philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. On a scholarship from the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”, he did his doctorate in 1990 with a thesis on “Mozarts frühe Streichquartette” (Rudolf Bockholdt). That same year, Seiffert started work at G. Henle Publishers as an editor. Parallel to his work at the publisher, he completed a diploma in business studies at the St. Gallen University, KMU-HSG, financed by the Günter Henle Foundation. Seiffert became managing director of G. Henle Verlag in 2000.

Seiffert has edited numerous Urtext editions for G. Henle Publishers, predominantly on Mozart’s works.

Prof. Walther Lampe, born in 1872 in Leipzig, died in 1964 in Munich, studied the piano with Clara Schumann at the Hoch’schen Konservatorium in Frankfurt, as well as music theory and composition. He concluded his studies in Berlin, where he was a student of Herzogenberg and Humperdinck.

He first appeared as a concert pianist, but in 1920 was appointed as a professor and head of a class at the Münchener Akademie der Tonkunst. After Lampe was given emeritus status in 1937, he took on a piano class at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Günter Henle, who grew up in Munich, was a private pupil of Lampe’s, from the age of 15 (in 1914). In his autobiography he wrote of his piano teacher in the following glowing terms:

“The years in which Walther Lampe, the renowned pianist and Head of piano master-classes in Munich and Salzburg, instructed me in the higher mysteries of piano playing, are amongst the most treasured memories of my youth. […] Lampe, himself an excellent concert pianist, had the reputation of being one of the leading teachers. Due to his practical experience of many decades he was able to pass on his great knowledge and skill both in words and through his own playing in a highly inspiring and supportive manner. His interpretations of Mozart were positively divine. […] I remain indebted to him for his great artistic suggestions and his friendship, which he shared with me over decades.”

During the first few years of World War II, Günter Henle looked up his old teacher and friend in Munich several times to play music with him. It was self-evident for Günter Henle to inform Walther Lampe of his plans to set up his music publishing house shortly after the end of the war, asking him for his help and advice. Lampe was very actively involved in the first editions: almost all of the Urtext editions published in the early years were supervised intensively by Lampe, a fact which is attested by the comprehensive correspondence in the archives of G. Henle Publishers. And Lampe also contributed his own fingerings to almost all of these editions. It is a very impressive list of titles, which even today still form part of G. Henle Publishers’ core repertoire.