In search of truth in service of beauty: the comparison of the autograph of Sonata in a minor by Franz Schubert with available editions

Musicians attach increasing importance to the selection of edition they use for playing. There is a growing awareness of the influence of score material selection on interpretation. Historical performance raises the bar as well by encouraging the use of autographs, manuscripts and first editions. Thanks to referring to historical materials, we can quickly appreciate the effort of contemporary editors who – once publishing scores today – make them much more accessible. It would seem that basing one’s interpretation on an urtext edition should be a perfect solution combining today’s clarity with historical truth. The analysis shows, however, that even these trustworthy urtext editions differ from one another, thus differ from the autograph. Using Sonata in A Minor D 385 by Franz Schubert as an example, the article shows different approaches to music text edition. There are distinct ways in which editors interpret articulation, dynamics, and even sound pitch. The biggest number of differences can be found in terms of articulation, which it largely connected with the necessity to read handwritten material. Unambiguous deciphering (and exact placement) of numerous music markings can sometimes be downright impossible. That is why editors often use the method which consists in searching for analogies between fragments and parts, yet this method does not always seem right. As performance practice shows, treating each part individually, playing a similar fragment in a dissimilar way, often brings interesting results interpretation-wise. The article encourages own experiments, using doubts as material for interpretation, and using the benefits of contemporary editions cautiously.

Censorship in Franco´s Spain about the novel of Mario Vargas Llosa "The City and the Dogs"

"The City and the Dogs" is the first novel by the famous Peruvian writer, Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, which was published in the author's youth. In 1963, at the time of the novel's publication, the author was 27 years old. It is known that Mario Vargas Llosa had to overcome many difficulties on the way to publishing the work. After reading the manuscript of the novel, the Catalan editor and founder of the publisher ¨Seix Barral¨, Carlos Barral aimed to publish the work by his publishing house. Barral has been in lengthy negotiations with Spanish censorship. In these negotiations were also involved general director of information agency, Robles Piquer, representative of cenorship and from the side of author, a friend of Robles Piquer, a professor at the University of Barcelona, ​​Jose Maria Valverde, which was the jury member of ¨Biblioteca Breve¨ award. He wrote the preface for the first editions of the novel. Mario Vargas Llosa's sympathies for the Communist Party and the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s and 1960s are well known. The novel clearly shows the author's leftist positions, his criticism and cynical attitude towards the Peruvian military system and education system. To express the prejudices, racial and class inequalities, corruption and injustice in a society living under a dictatorial regime, the author does not shy away from using the vulgar language of adults and describing sexual scenes, that allow the reader to perceive and imagine the novel realistically.It was the novel's anti-militaristic tone, rude language, and sexual episodes that presented a kind of "embarrassment" to Franco´s censorship, which was much more lighted in the 1960s than in previous years. The novel did not satisfy censorship criterias, cause it included, offensive themes of religion (the episode of the priest), sexuality-related topics, inappropriate and provocative language, and thoughts against the regime (criticism of the military system) which was unacceptable to Spanish censors.As a result of negotiations conducted by Carlos Barral, censorship allowed the author to publish his first novel, in Franco´s Spain, led by the rightists. In this article, we will discuss the negotiation process for publishing a novel. Despite the novel's anti-militaristic attitude, under the Spanish censorship it was published whith a minimal changes, unlike from the Soviet Union, where, as Vargas Llosa noted, the novel was "amputated." In the article we will discuss also why Spanish censorship allowed the publication of a novel and with minor modifications that was considered as an allegory of anti-Francoism.

Los Cynegetica de pseudo-Opiano, ¿poema incompleto?

En las primeras ediciones y estudios consagrados a los Cynegetica de pseudo-Opiano se argumentaba que el poema estaba incompleto; esta opinión se basaba principalmente en la promesa incumplida de III 404-6 y en la falta de un epílogo. Dando por válidas esas razones, el presente artículo estudia, en primer lugar, el contenido de los libros II y III, en los cuales se observan numerosos indicios de que el poeta conocía muchos más datos sobre la caza que los expuestos en el libro IV. En segundo lugar, estas páginas prestan atención al marcado contraste que se aprecia entre el esmerado proemio del libro IV y su abrupto final. Ambos aspectos, que anteriormente no habían sido apenas tenidos en cuenta, permiten completar la argumentación a favor del estado inacabado de los Cynegetica. From the first editions and studies about the Cynegetica of pseudo-Oppian it has been argued that the poem was incomplete; it was based on the broken promise of III 404-6 and on the lack of an epilogue. Considering these reasons as valid, this article first studies the content of the books II and III, in which it is possible to find many indications that the author knew much more about the theme of the book IV (the description of hunting) than he revealed. Next, we pay attention to the contrast between the careful proem of the book IV and its abrupt ending. Both aspects that have been scarcely considered before enable to show the shortcoming of the book IV.

The Scientific Significance of the Search and Publication of Kazakh Fairy Tales Preserved in Manuscripts

The process of collecting and publishing Kazakh fairy tales dates back to thesecond half of the 19th century. During the period of the colonization of the Kazakh steppe by theRussian Empire, people of different professions who came here for different purposes and workedin the civil service began to pay attention not only to the registration of land wealth, but also to thestudy of samples of oral folk art. On the pages of the first editions “Turkistan ualayatynyn gazeti”,“Dala ualayatynyn gazeti”, published in the second half of the 19th century in the Kazakh languageand spreading in the Kazakh steppe, numerous folk tales were published, taken from oral folk art.Along with Russian scientists, representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia and educators were alsoengaged in the study of fairy tales. Kazakh fairy tales were published several times at the beginningof the twentieth century and after the establishment of Soviet power. After gaining independence ofKazakhstan, numerous fairy tales were published in whole volumes. At the same time, somepublications were found and re-published fairy tales that had not been previously published. Weknow that Kazakh fairy tales, collected in manuscript centers and library funds, have a rich heritage.Finding and republishing unpublished tales is an urgent need today. In the article, the author notesthe importance of searching for fairy tales in the archives of the regional level, as well as among themanuscripts collected in manuscript funds and written in Cyrillic, Arabic or Latin letters, and thepublication of these fairy tales, especially previously unknown ones. He also draws attention to thespiritual heritage of the people and the significance of fairy tales in modern folklore.

Uma prosa através: “Minha classe gosta / Logo, é uma bosta.”, um nuvô romã de Paulo Leminski / A word about: “My class likes/So, it’s a crap.”, a nouveau roman by Paulo Leminski

Resumo: No início dos anos 1980, surgiu em Curitiba uma revista que teria vida curta e que veicularia, em três de suas primeiras edições, novela inédita e incompleta de Paulo Leminski. “Minha classe gosta/Logo, é uma bosta.” não figura em nenhum dos livros de Leminski; ficou, assim, circunscrita àqueles três números da Raposa magazine – revista de cultura que, desde a capa, prometia vincular “humor e rumor”. O clima contracultural da Curitiba – e do Brasil – dos anos 1980 se vê refletido não só na idealização da revista, como também de maneira especial na novela leminskiana, que opera uma releitura da década anterior sem obliterar as questões políticas que estavam no centro das discussões. Com vistas a alinhar as questões éticas levantadas pela narrativa em pauta ao apuro estético de um poeta muito atento às revoluções formais do século XX, esta análise se acerca do texto de Leminski municiada das considerações de Theodor Adorno (1982; 2003) sobre a importância da forma como conteúdo sedimentado – que medeia e incorpora a barbárie do mundo –, com apoio nas leituras feitas por Jaime Ginzburg (2012) e Verlaine Freitas (2008); além disso, ensaios de Roberto Schwarz (1978), Carlos Alberto Messeder Pereira (1993), Elio Gaspari (2000; 2014) e Bernardo Kucinski (2001) ajudarão a compor o cenário histórico brasileiro dos anos 1960 aos 1980.Palavras-chave: Paulo Leminski; “Minha classe gosta/Logo, é uma bosta.”; Theodor Adorno; estética e política.Abstract: In the early 1980s, there appeared in Curitiba a magazine which would have a short life and would bring, in three of its first editions, an unpublished and incomplete novel by Paulo Leminski. “My class likes/So, it’s a crap.” is not in any of Leminski’s books; it was limited to those three issues of Raposa magazine – a culture magazine that, from its cover, promised to link “humor and rumor”. The counter-cultural climate of Curitiba – and of Brazil – in the 1980s is reflected not only in the magazine’s idealization, but also, in a special way, in the Leminskian narrative, which does a rereading of the previous decade without obliterating the political issues that were at the center of the discussions. In order to align the ethical issues raised by the narrative with the aesthetic accuracy of a poet who was very attentive to the formal revolutions of the 20th century, this analysis approaches Leminski’s text, armed with Theodor Adorno’s considerations (1982; 2003) about the importance of form as a sedimented content – which mediates and incorporates the barbarity of the world – and also with the support of by Jaime Ginzburg’s (2012) and Verlaine Freitas’s readings (2008). In addition, essays by Roberto Schwarz (1978), Carlos Alberto Messeder Pereira (1993), Elio Gaspari (2000; 2014) and Bernardo Kucinski (2001) will help to set the Brazilian historical scenario from the 1960s to the 1980s.Keywords: Paulo Leminski; “My class likes/So, it’s a crap.”; Theodor Adorno; aesthetics and politics.

The Scientific Significance of the Search and Publication of Kazakh Fairy Tales Preserved in Manuscripts

The process of collecting and publishing Kazakh fairy tales dates back to the second half of the 19th century. During the period of the colonization of the Kazakh steppe by the Russian Empire, people of different professions who came here for different purposes and worked in the civil service began to pay attention not only to the registration of land wealth, but also to the study of samples of oral folk art. On the pages of the first editions “Turkistan ualayatynyn gazeti”, “Dala ualayatynyn gazeti”, published in the second half of the 19th century in the Kazakh language and spreading in the Kazakh steppe, numerous folk tales were published, taken from oral folk art. Along with Russian scientists, representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia and educators were also engaged in the study of fairy tales. Kazakh fairy tales were published several times at the beginning of the twentieth century and after the establishment of Soviet power. After gaining independence of Kazakhstan, numerous fairy tales were published in whole volumes. At the same time, some publications were found and re-published fairy tales that had not been previously published. We know that Kazakh fairy tales, collected in manuscript centers and library funds, have a rich heritage. Finding and republishing unpublished tales is an urgent need today. In the article, the author notes the importance of searching for fairy tales in the archives of the regional level, as well as among the manuscripts collected in manuscript funds and written in Cyrillic, Arabic or Latin letters, and the publication of these fairy tales, especially previously unknown ones. He also draws attention to the spiritual heritage of the people and the significance of fairy tales in modern folklore.

Alchemical stanzaic poetry (muwashshaḥ) by Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs (fl. twelfth century)

The twelfth-century alchemist Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs is best known for his collection (dīwān) of alchemical poems entitled Shudhūr al-dhahab (“The Splinters of Gold”). However, he is also credited with other works, including stanzaic poetry (muwashshaḥāt) on alchemy. This paper presents the current state of the scholarship concerning life and works of Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs, and then focuses on three strophic poems attributed to this alchemist. It includes first editions and English translations of all three poems, and argues that at least two of the poems are likely to have been authored by Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs, while one is a literary imitation (muʿāraḍa) and therefore probably not a work of Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs himself. Furthermore, the article discusses the literary features of the poems as well as their historical contexts and their – somewhat limited – reception. This also allows us to think of Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs in a less regional Andalusī-Maghribī context, and consider if he perhaps moved east at some point of his life, which would explain the reception history of his poems, both those included in the dīwān and the muwashshaḥāt.

Literary Texts from the Sippar Library II: The Epic of Creation

This article presents first editions of three large manuscripts of the Epic of Creation from the “Sippar Library,” and eight smaller fragments from the British Museum’s “Babylon” and “Sippar” collections. In addition to restoring several lines of various episodes of the text, they provide an almost complete restoration of the two closing verses of the Babylonian version of the poem.