About the Edition

About the Edition Probstücke Digital is a digital edition of the 24 Prob-Stücke (test pieces) that form the “Ober-Classe” of Johann Mattheson’s thoroughbass treatise. Each Prob-Stück is a figured bass, one in each of the 24 keys, followed by Mattheson’s Erläuterung: a commentary that discusses individual bars and often shows in a short music example how the right hand might be realised. Mattheson published the treatise twice: as Exemplarische Organisten-Probe im Artikel vom General-Bass (Hamburg: Schiller und Kißner, 1719) and, revised and enlarged, as Grosse General-Baß-Schule (Hamburg: Kißner, 1731). The edition presents both versions, so that Mattheson’s revisions of the music and of the commentary can be followed piece by piece. What the Edition Contains The figured basses of all 24 Prob-Stücke, encoded in MEI. One encoding per piece records both prints. Where they differ, both readings are encoded, and each page shows the reading of the print it belongs to. Diplomatic transcriptions of Mattheson’s commentary from both prints, encoded in TEI: 23 from 1719 and 24 from 1731. For Probstück 24 only the 1731 commentary is included. An English translation of the commentary by Niels Pfeffer, made from the 1731 text. Lessons and realisations: two lessons that Robert Hill gave on Probstücke 3 and 4 at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in May 2019, transcribed from audio recordings, and a realisation of Probstück 4 by Dijoux with notes in French. Editorial notes, and indices of the persons, literature and musical works mentioned in the commentary, linked to the Integrated Authority File (GND) where possible. Sources The transcriptions and the page images are based on copies in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich: 1719: Exemplarische Organisten-Probe, shelfmark Mus.th. 977 a. Digital copy · Catalogue record 1731: Grosse General-Baß-Schule, shelfmark Mus.th. 978 a. Digital copy · Catalogue record Page images are loaded directly from the library’s IIIF service. Each line of music in the edition is linked to the corresponding area of the page in both prints. Selection Both versions of the treatise consist of a theoretical preparation, 24 easier examples and the 24 more difficult Prob-Stücke. The edition covers the Prob-Stücke with their commentaries. The preparation and the easier examples are not included. Editorial Approach Music and text are encoded following the standards of the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). The commentary is transcribed diplomatically following the Base Format of the Deutsches Textarchiv (DTABf), preserving original spelling, line beginnings, catchwords and page breaks. The rules are described in the editorial guidelines. For easier reading, the website shows the 1719 and 1731 commentaries in modernised spelling. The modernisation is produced automatically by CAB, the normalisation service of the Deutsches Textarchiv, and has not been checked word by word. Point at a word to see its original spelling. The diplomatic transcription itself is contained in the TEI files, which can be downloaded from every page. Reading the Edition On each page the score is on the left and the commentary on the right. Highlighted passages in the commentary refer to bars, notes or figures in the score: point at a passage to see them marked in the score, or at a marked element in the score to find the passage. Point at a line of music to see it in the original print. The buttons above the score switch between original and modern clefs, show or hide the upper staff with the right-hand passages notated in the print, and add or remove empty staves for writing out a realisation. Team and Credits Edited by Niels Pfeffer and Klaus Rettinghaus. English translation: Niels Pfeffer. Lessons on Probstücke 3 and 4: Robert Hill with Niels Pfeffer; transcription by Niels Pfeffer. Realisation of Probstück 4: Dijoux; encoding by Niels Pfeffer. Website: Niels Pfeffer. Page images: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. Software: Verovio for music notation, CAB for spelling modernisation, Pagefind for search. Licence and Reuse Transcriptions, translation, editorial notes, indices and all TEI and MEI encodings are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). The source files are available in the probstuecke-data repository. The page images belong to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, which provides them under the rights statement No Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Only. The source code of the website is available in the probstuecke-digital repository under the MIT licence.