Leipzig Edition of the Works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Funding: Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities (SAW); Period: 1992–2047 (Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities)
As part of a project based at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, a complete edition of the German composer’s musical, written and visual works is being compiled. Researchers have been working on a musicological edition since 1959, initially focusing on the composer’s unpublished early works. The edition of all the works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was taken over as a project by the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig at the beginning of 1992. The project is part of the publication programme of the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. The research centre established for this purpose has since developed into a central hub and boasts what is probably the most comprehensive Mendelssohn library in the world, as Christiane Wiesenfeldt emphasises.
The 50 volumes of sheet music published to date are supplemented by a thematic and systematic catalogue of works, the critical edition of which was published to mark the Mendelssohn bicentenary in 2009. As part of the historical-critical complete edition, the aim is now not only to catalogue further compositions, but also selected written documents and visual artworks, including drawings and watercolours by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The planned online portal dedicated to the composer will, by the end of the project in 2047, bring together all documents relating to Mendelssohn’s life and work in a single digital repository in cooperation with libraries holding the relevant collections worldwide, and make them available to specialist audiences and the interested public with scholarly commentary.
Project Team
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Huy-Dang Nguyen | Student Assistant | University of Heidelberg |