Bastiaan Blomhert

The Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis (= Royal Society for the History of Dutch Music) assigned me to prepare a critical edition of Willem Pijper’s Derde (= Third) Symfonie, the Zes (= Six) Symfonische Epigrammen and 6 Adagios as the first Volume of a Collected Works edition.

A central issue of this editon is the question which sources should be taken seriously.  Since the late 1940s these works have been (posthumously) published in manuscript editions that were based on performing materials instead of Pijper’s own autographs. Also, the conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964), who ordered the Third Symphony, conducted the premiere and introduced the work all over the world permitted himself drastic retouches and additions.

Many interesting historical facts appeared during the research of the background history of these compositions.