At the close of the 2011 Internationales Ignaz-Joseph-Pleyel-Symposium, organized by the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz and the Internationale Ignaz Joseph Pleyel-Gesellschaft, a meeting took place to explore the feasibility of issuing a critical edition of the composer's complete works. Since 2011 considerable progress has been made towards launching this ambitious project, with editorial policies finalized, area leaders appointed and substantial work already carried out on assembling sources and computer-setting working drafts of compositions across a wide range of genres. Understandably, given the current preoccupation of many Pleyel specialists with the establishment of the edition, the 4. Internationales Ignaz-Joseph-Pleyel-Symposium took as its theme issues relating to sources and editions (Quellen- und Editionsfragen). With a slightly smaller field than in previous years, the 2013 symposium principally featured scholars who are closely involved in the Pleyel Gesamtausgabe. Other Pleyel specialists attending the editorial board meeting, such as Klaus Aringer, Dagmar Glüxam and Herbert Seifert, ensured that the discussions were lively and wide-ranging in scope.

John Strauss (Luther College, Decorah, Iowa) opened the symposium with a paper entitled ‘Music Publishing in Vienna Then and Now: The Publisher's Dilemma in Pleyel's Time and in the Modern Era’, which explored the curious parallels between the shift in Pleyel's lifetime from manuscript-based dissemination, through engraved editions, to lithographic processes (which drastically transformed the economics of music publishing) and the impact of computer engraving and digital publishing in our own. Strauss's overview of publishing practices in the eighteenth century considered not only the technical aspects of production but also the management of distribution through reciprocal arrangements between publishers and the growing commercial imperative first to establish and then guarantee, by a variety of means, the authenticity of the works that were being sold. By the mid-nineteenth century, music publishing had reached a level of technical and commercial sophistication that enabled it to survive with only minor changes until well into the twentieth century. The universal adoption of computer engraving, digital publishing and distribution from the late 1990s unleashed radical change on the industry and began to threaten the long-term viability of many notable publishing houses. The reduction of costs in the preparation and printing of musical editions, however, made possible the realization of a raft of important new publishing initiatives, and the principal beneficiaries of this were (and remain) the fields of contemporary music and musicology. Pleyel, as an innovative force in music publishing, would no doubt have embraced this brave new world with great enthusiasm were he alive today. The challenge that faces the editors of the Pleyel Gesamtausgabe, in Strauss's view, is to utilize the full potential of technology available to it in order to create an edition that is of the highest scholarly value and which can be disseminated using a variety of digital and print platforms.

Hartmut Krones (Universität Wien) addressed one of the most problematic areas in both editorial and performance practices in his paper ‘Zur Problematik der Vorschlags-Notierung (nicht nur bei Pleyel)’ (On the Problem of Notating Appoggiaturas (Not Only with Pleyel)). Drawing on all of the major theoretical treatises of the period and a wide selection of examples from autograph scores by Haydn, Mozart and Pleyel, Krones argued that since the historical sources were not particularly helpful in unravelling the contentious issue surrounding the notation and performance of appoggiaturas, the key lies in making statistical analyses of notational conventions based on the practices of single composers. Comparing examples taken from the same musical context but in the works of several composers and examples from differing contexts but written by a single composer, Krones demonstrated that there is no convenient one-size-fits all solution to this particular issue. In the conclusion to his paper he asserted his conviction that although we as editors need to choose the best and most likely reading from the available sources, the inconsistencies found throughout them should not be dismissed out of hand as notational ‘schlamperei’. The old rhetorical rules of avoiding literal repetitions inform a great deal of eighteenth-century performance practice. Furthermore, there are details of notation that are of critical importance to the performer but not to the editor: it is of fundamental importance, therefore, that the performer, who often sees an appoggiatura as an abstraction divorced from the Affekt, should understand how to execute a particular appoggiatura in its musical context.

One of the most critical issues that faces an editor is the choice of a primary text, and this was explored in relation to Pleyel's string quartets in my (Allan Badley, University of Auckland) paper ‘Viable Texts or Reliable Texts? The Earliest Editions of Pleyel's String Quintets’. The publication of nine of Pleyel's twelve string quintets in sets of three obscures the fact that the earliest editions were either of single works or pairs of quintets. The unusual concentration of minor-key works composed around 1785–1786, and their later distribution throughout the sets, implies that Pleyel may have had a plan from the outset to compose four sets of three quintets each of which was to contain a minor-key work. My examination of the early printed sources for these works identified a number of texts that might be considered reliable (in the sense of their possible connection with the composer), rather than merely viable as the basis for a critical edition. Of considerable interest was the discovery of an unknown variant form of the Quintet in F minor, Ben 277, which possibly represents the version of the work performed in Italy in 1786, as reported in Cramer's Magazin der Musik. Although the overwhelming majority of the extant sources are in printed form, a series of manuscript copies of Pleyel's quintets (including those scored for other combinations of instruments) preserved in the music collection of the Austrian National Library is of particular interest. The owner or copyist of these manuscripts, ‘N. H.’ (the identity of whom was the subject of interesting speculation at the symposium), appears to have copied the first six works either from manuscript sources or from individual prints before they were brought together into sets. Since ‘N. H.’ may have had unusually early access to the first six quintets, the copies are clearly of the first importance. In the course of my paper I also considered the possible origins of Pleyel's interest in the genre, dismissing early Viennese exemplars such as the quintets of Wanhal, and the reasons why it appears to have been short-lived.

Complex publication histories are not uncommon in Pleyel's case, and one of the more remarkable of them was the focus of Ingeborg Harer's (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz) paper ‘Pleyels Klavierschule – Quellen, Auflagen, Varianten’ (Pleyel's Klavierschule: Sources, Editions, Variants). Rita Benton's thematic catalogue of Pleyel's works lists sixty-six editions of the Klavierschule between 1796 and 1843, with exemplars scattered throughout Europe and the United States. The number of editions is in itself not particularly problematic to an editor; it is the involvement of other composers in the book's evolution, among them Dussek, Clementi and Cramer, and its publication in multiple languages, that lends it such a labyrinthine quality. The earliest edition (1796) is not by Pleyel and was published in English, the first edition to appear under Pleyel's name (1797) is in French and the first German-language edition was not published until after 1800. Which, if any, is the best text? Harer argues that one of the most fascinating aspects of the Klavierschule is the way in which it was adapted throughout its publication history to reflect changing musical tastes and a demand for increased virtuosity. This is most obvious from the accompanying musical examples, the earliest of which were composed by Pleyel. Any new edition of the Klavierschule must include these examples if it is accurately to reflect the long and distinguished life of this remarkable pedagogical venture.

Christian Ahrens (Universität Bochum) explored issues surrounding sources for Pleyel's wind music in his paper ‘Zur Quellenlage der Bläserkammermusik’ (On the Source Material for Chamber Music for Winds). A major contributing factor to the complexity of source studies in this particular field is Pleyel's practice of borrowing music from himself. Benton 251 is unusually complex in this respect since it was conceived first as a sextet in 1780 (two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons) but was published in 1787 as a septet (two horns, two violins, viola, cello and bass), adding movements from Ben 283–284, and in 1788 as a string quintet. In such a case, Ahrens asked, what kind of urtext can we have and where should a work like this sit in Benton's catalogue? Where, too, do arrangements in general (as opposed to parallel versions) sit? Should these be, as they so often are, diminished in value? Ahrens emphasized that the adaptability of works was a cornerstone of Pleyel's musical language and compositional practice: he made music, not genres. The concertante wind music was clearly written for virtuoso players, and Ahrens speculated that it could date from the period c1776–1780.

Pleyel's wind music was also the subject of a paper jointly presented by Peter Heckl and Klaus Hubmann (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz). ‘Henne oder Ei? Originale und Bearbeitungen in Pleyels Ensemblemusik mit Bläsern’ (Chicken or Egg?: Originals and Arrangements in Pleyel's Ensemble Music with Winds) addressed the important issue of priority in Pleyel's ensemble music for winds. Heckl and Hubmann identified first the ‘authentic eggs’ in order to distinguish them from spurious arrangements of Pleyel's works. Among such ‘authentic eggs’ are the Flute Quartets, Ben 387–392, published in 1797 by Maison Pleyel (a version for string trio (Ben 410–415) was issued the same year); all twelve works were based on the Piano Trios, Ben 465–470, which had appeared in 1796, but not every movement was incorporated into the new settings. All of these versions are unquestionably authentic, but it is not clear in every case where the priority should lie. By way of contrast, Heckl and Hubmann considered the authenticity of a set of octets attributed to Pleyel in the archive at Donaueschingen. These works are derived from movements taken from Pleyel's concertos and the parts contain many copying or transcription errors. They are clearly not authentic compilations in spite of Pleyel's authorship of the original movements. The discussion that followed posed the questions ‘How did Pleyel choose movements to recycle?’ and ‘How might this pattern differ from examples of opportunistic borrowing?’.

Like many eighteenth-century composers, Pleyel composed a considerable corpus of dance music, typically minuets, Deutsche and écossaises, even though dance music was not central to his professional activities or interests. In her paper ‘Pleyels Musik zum Tanzen’ (Pleyel's Music for Dancing), Gudrun Rottensteiner (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz) discussed the differences between music composed specifically for dancing and music that is based on dance forms. Minuets were often composed for playing but, as they did not require new choreography, frequently served as dance music. In sharp contrast to this stands the anglaise, which was never specifically composed for dancing to since, as a dance, the anglaise always required new choreography. Dancing masters arranged these pieces so that they could be danced to, and where these copies survive, the changes are immediately apparent. The narrow utility of the genre possibly explains Pleyel's apparent lack of interest in it. While his dance music occupies a marginal place in his output, it is clear from the surviving music that Pleyel thoroughly understood the dance conventions of his day and that, like so much of his music, his dances enjoyed a considerable measure of contemporary popularity.

The conference's final paper, presented by Charris Efthimiou (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz), considered the matter of instrumentation in orchestral music of the late eighteenth century. Drawing on a sample of 250 works by a wide cross-section of eighteenth-century composers, Efthimiou demonstrated in his ‘Neue Methoden der Instrumentationsanalyse bei Mozart. Eine Perspektive für die Pleyel-Forschung?’ (New Methods for Analysing Mozart's Instrumentation: A Perspective for Pleyel Research?) how an exhaustive analysis of instrumental doublings (including parallel movement in thirds and sixths) in Mozart's early symphonies already demonstrates a vastly wider sensitivity to timbre than can be found in the music of any of his contemporaries. Even in the very earliest works, Mozart's handling of orchestral doublings is more varied and sophisticated than anything encountered in the symphonies of Leopold Mozart, for example, in spite of (or because of) his lack of experience in the medium. In other words, these were imagined sounds rather than conventional examples of instrumentation. The desire for constant variety, Efthimiou argued, is the mark of an extremely talented composer, and in Pleyel's Symphony in E flat major Ben 142 we encounter a similar level of diversity: among thirteen thematic citations in the first movement there is only one identical repetition. Constant variation of tone colour is central to Pleyel's conception of this work and should, therefore, be considered in any analysis of it. Efthimiou suggested that Pleyel's obvious sensitivity to tone colour is perhaps one of the reasons why he issued alternative versions of works; new colours allowed for a reappraisal of the entire fabric of a composition.

In the symposium's closing discussion Klaus Aringer paid tribute to the huge contribution that Adolf Ehrentraud, President of the Pleyel-Gesellschaft, has made to revitalizing interest in the composer's works and in bringing closer to fruition a critical edition of Pleyel's complete works.