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Communications.

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This column provides a forum for responses to the contents of this journal, and for information of interest to readers. The editor reserves the right to publish letters in excerpted form and to edit them for conciseness and clarity.

To the Editor:

Although it is heartening to see the various editions of piano works by Alkan, Busoni, Godowsky, Medtner, and Sorabji given prominent attention in Notes (60, no. 1 [September 2003]: 290-95), Robert Rimm's review of these editions contains far too many inaccuracies and misleading statements. Setting aside the rather bizarre decision to enlist a reviewer who endorses publications with which he was closely involved (even when so acknowledged), and who promotes his own writing (in the last paragraph), I call your attention to the following:

Marc-Andre Hamelin did not "contribute many corrections" to the Dover Alkan volume, as Rimm claims (p. 292). As Hamelin would willingly confirm, none were needed, since the original nineteenth-century Alkan editions were meticulously proofread by their composer. Rimm continues to have the illusion, three paragraphs later, that mistakes in Alkan's scores are "common." This is simply untrue.

Rimm offers what he calls a "perspective" on the length of Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano versus Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata by counting the respective pages, saying that the entire Beethoven work can be contained within the Alkan first movement. This gives the unwary reader a totally skewed impression. Musical length is measured by clock time, not pages or measure numbers. The actual playing time of the Alkan Concerto is about 49 to 51 minutes, of which the first movement approaches 30 minutes by itself. The timings of the majority of recorded performances of the complete "Hammerklavier" range from about 41 to 48 minutes.

I would he interested to know where Rimm has managed to study Alkan's "absorbing manuscripts ... filled with hold, calligraphic strokes" (p. 292). Although facsimiles have appeared of one or two early or minor Alkan pieces, the remainder either do not exist or have never been made available. As Ronald Smith notes, "Few autographs of his published works have come to light" (Alkan: The Man, the Music [London: Kahn & Averill, 2000], 260).

Referring to the recent Carl Fischer volumes of Godowsky, Rimm claims that Godowsky's E-Minor Sonata is "the only work Godowsky composed in this form" (p....

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