EDUCATION
But first, why ‘an appreciation’? Possibly for the hard work that goes into this aspect of musicology by the compilers and editors; possibly for the catalogues’ usefulness; maybe even for the aesthetic beauty of their systematic and diverse approaches (this last one is a bit niche, admittedly – but some will surely have historical musicologists in paroxysms of joy for their sheer rigour!). Let’s start with the most obvious way of labelling works.
‘Opus’ literally means ‘Work’ (think the phrase ‘magnum opus’) but it has come to mean that a particular piece was published. And if it was published after the relevant composer’s death, it can take on the designation ‘Op. posth’ (posthumous work, in other words – although that does rather sound like the composer wrote it after their own death). ‘Opus’ is what we are all familiar with, however, what happens if we have a manuscript but no assigned opus number? Or, what happens if the same opus number is assigned to different works (it happens, especially with Dvořák: for example, his Op 12 was at various times the 1871 opera
