Friedrich Kuhlau's three duos op. 80, written about 1826, were published for the first time in 1827/28 at the publishing house owned by the horn player Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn. A parallel edition was organized by the flutist, music historian and publisher Aristide Farrenc in Paris. Later adaptions for flute and violin as well as for flute and piano in the Parisian publishing house Richault testify the popularity of these Kuhlau compositions as well.

Since then several new prints of the flute duos followed for instance by Litolff (Braun-schweig), Peters (Leipzig), Fischer (New York), International Music Company (New York), Cundy-Bettoney (Boston) and Ricordi (Milano). All these prints were published continuously in part editions.

The disadvantage of part editions without scores is obvious: neither the ensemble play is to be appropriately tuned and controlled, nor text discrepancies and text mistakes are to be definitively corrected, because beside the ear comparison the eye comparison, which is just important as this, is missing.

To rectify this bad condition, which comes to light especially at artistic events like competitions etc, the Uelzener Kuhlau-Edition publishes a score edition of the duo op. 80 no. 3 for the first time in each two copies per edition. Based on this innovation in the publishing history of the Kuhlau duos it is possible from now on to remedy the previous lacks and to lift these often as only amateurish seen instrumentation up to the level of professional performance.

Detmold, Dezember 2002

Prof. Dr. Richard Müller-Dombois

Translation: Constanze Müller-Dombois