Within the new, three-volume edition of the Tabulatura nova, Part 2 is of particular interest: its introduction features Harald Vogel’s extensive essay “Keyboard Playing Techniques around 1600.”

Whoever is familiar with Vogel’s outstanding accomplishments in the field of early 17th-century organ music will know that this text reflects the performer’s decade-long experience. Scheidt’s opus summum is thus not simply continued in Volume 2, but elucidated in an even more comprehensive manner than in the widely acclaimed first volume (EB 8565).

Vol. 1 of Harald Vogels new edition being issued almost exactly 100 years after the first modern edition (Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst, Vol. I, 1893). It consists of three volumes corresponding to the subdivision of the original print of 1624.

It contains extensive information on the repertoire, performance practice and types of organ, and features the first translation of the Latin dedications.
This edition exemplifies a new kind of editorial technique which consciously eschews the modernization of many details in the original notation (e.g. note values, time signatures or bar lengths ).

The upright format accentuates the suitability of the pieces for all keyboard instruments, since almost all of the works can be played on one keyboard (manualiter). The notation is on two staves throughout save for a selection of pieces on three staves, whereby the cantus firmus is always printed separately. The canonic pieces have been fully written out for the first time.

Harald Vogel (b. 1941) is regarded as the leading authority in the field of the interpretation of north-German Renaissance and Baroque organ music. Concert tours throughout the world and CDs documents his far-reaching artistic activity.

In 1972 he founded the North-German Organ Academy, which he still leads today. Vogel has proven his commitment to teaching through his professorship at the Conservatory in Bremen as well as through teaching positions in Germany and abroad.

Volume 1 awarded the German Music Edition Prize 1994.

“Each piece is a major work and demands the utmost brilliance and stamina of the work of ist genre.” (Early Keyboard Music)

“The key aspect of the Breitkopf editions are the excellent written commentaries included in each volume, in German and English.” (Andrew Benson-Wilson, Early Music Reviews)

“A key work in German organ music with an excellent introduction which all serious students of the instrument should have. There is much marvellous music here, and I strongly recommend this to all keyboard players, not just organists.” (Early Music Review)