Henle Information

Musicians throughout the world are familiar with and treasure our blue Urtext editions – top quality editions of great classical compositions. Our products have repeatedly been awarded the German Music Edition Prize. The fact that more than 80% of our editions are exported (Europe, USA, Asia) bears witness to our strong international focus. Urtext and Henle are synonymous, however the term “Urtext” has been debated ever since it was first used. Yet the idea behind it is simple and easy to understand: the musician is offered a musical text which solely reflects the composer’s intentions. As market leader with many years of experience, our catalogue currently lists more than 1.000 Urtext editions from Bach to Debussy, and from Handel to Gershwin.Each Henle edition has to fulfil extremely high standards: - authoritative musical text - markings for practical use - superb engraving - preface in three languages (German, English, French) - critical commentary in at least two languages (German, English, generally also French) - durability (paper, binding)