Reinhold Kubik


Reinhold Kubik was an Austrian musicologist, pianist and conductor.

Biography

From 1966 to 1974, Kubik worked as a repetiteur, coach, and Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. From 1974 to 1980, Kubik did research for a PhD on Handel's Rinaldo at Erlangen. He has also been a pianist, composer, choir director and lecturer. Kubik was editor-in-chief of Hänssler Verlag and has worked at Universal Edition Wien. He taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, in Nuremberg, Karlsruhe, London, and at Yale University.
Kubik was married to the Baroque scholar, singer and dance pedagogue Margit Legler. Legler and Kubik have jointly written about and presented productions related to Baroque music, dance, and theatre.

IGMG tenure

From 1993 to 2012, Kubik was editor-in-chief of the Critical Complete Edition of the Works of Gustav Mahler and vice president of the Internationale Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft. Several controversial episodes ensued over editions of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 6 issued during his tenure.

Symphony No. 1

In the IGMG edition of the Symphony No. 1 edited by Sander Wilkens, Wilkens had stated that the 3rd-movement double bass solo was instead meant for the full unison double bass section of the orchestra to perform, rather than by a solo double bass player, in contraindication to past published manuscripts and performance traditions. This statement occasioned criticism for Wilkens' inaccurate reading of the manuscripts, to the point where Kubik later repudiated Wilkens' misreading of the double bass solo:

Symphony No. 6

With respect to the Symphony No. 6, Kubik presided over the 2010 edition published by the IGMG, which featured the inner movements in the order Andante-Scherzo. Kubik had earlier declared in print in 2004:
This statement has received criticism for multiple reasons, which include:

its blanket dismissal of the original score with the Scherzo/Andante order,

its expression of a personal preference without documentary evidence and based on subjective animus related to the Alma Problem,

for imposing an advance bias instead of presenting objectively, without preconceived bias, the two options of Scherzo/Andante and Andante/Scherzo.
Mahler scholar and biographer Henry-Louis de la Grange has written about Kubik's judgment:
Music writer David Hurwitz has likewise written on Kubik's subjective bias towards a single choice, instead of granting performers latitude to make their own choice without advance bias:
Hurwitz also notes Kubik's dismissal of the existence of the original version in the pronouncement:

Publications

  • Helmut Brenner, Reinhold Kubik: Mahlers Menschen. Freunde und Weggefährten. Residenz-Verlag, St. Pölten/Salzburg/Wien 2014,.Händels Rinaldo. Geschichte, Werk, Wirkung. Hänssler, Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1982,.