Editing Purcell’s Keyboard Music: Some Reflections on Collected Editions, Past and Future

The authors examine the challenges of editing Purcell’s keyboard music in the context of their completion of a printed volume for the Purcell Society begun by Christopher Hogwood, and their involvement in ‘Digital Directions for Collected Editions’, which investigated critical editing of music in the digital domain. Hogwood advocated an inclusive approach that included independent arrangements by various scribes of the same material. The printed volume will arrange items by key; a digital edition would allow flexibility to order pieces in other ways. As recent research shows, variance between sources often reflects aspects of performance practice that can be applied more broadly to keyboard music of the period, as well as revision by the composer; this has implications for how variance should be treated in critical editions. The authors consider the challenges of presentation within the confines of a printed volume and suggest the potential of digital editions for addressing them, arguing for use of ossias in the former and flexibility of presentation in the latter. A digital edition allows a multidimensional approach where primary sources can serve as a base text corrected by reference to other versions that can be displayed to give the user a sense of other possibilities. In terms of any future digital edition of Purcell’s keyboard music, questions surrounding financial sustainability, data preservation and software maintenance will rely on the development of user communities: user interfaces will need to meet the needs of a young pianist as well as those of a specialist in early music.