Editorial

As in all professions, as every cultural and artistic activity in our society, music is made up of several spheres, whose complementary significance is not always fully understood. Each of these fields (history, technique, performance, creation and many others) has (and requires) its own leading investigator.

The main concern of these people — whose curiosity is very large — is to analyse documents, to discern things, to study, to reconstruct, to interpret, to classify, then to publish the results but nevertheless to continue their research.

This work often cuts off the investigator from his colleagues. Apart from this, a published work is quickly overtaken by life with all its constant revelations.

The books are nevertheless the milestones of history. This is the reason for my special admiration and respect for Detlef Altenburg, Edward Tarr, Don Smithers, Bernhard Brüchle, Kurt Janetzky and Anthony Baines for their extraordinary works which they have published in recent times. Their research allows for better orientation within our musical areas. Thanks to them the cultural inheritance is enriched enormously and determines an evolutionary way which demands the responsibility of living musicians.