In general, a responsible editor seeks to present an "authoritative" version of the work he is editing. A version is by definition "authoritative" when it conforms to the "author's" (i.e., the composer's) intentions; the editor's task is to recover these intentions to the extent that the evidence available permits. Since the composer's intentions may have changed during the process of composition, editors often speak of recovering the composer's "latest intentions." The phrase "latest intentions" presupposes, of course, a specific process of composition, one in which successive revisions are made until the work assumes a form which either satisfies the composer or frustrates further attempts at revision. In many cases, the process of composition does indeed conform to this model, but often the concept of the composer's "latest intentions" must be modified. Sometimes, a composer who has conceived a work for one group of performers will then rewrite the work in order to accommodate another ensemble with strengths and weaknesses different from those of the first: in one sense, the second version represents the composer's "latest intentions," but in fact the principle of "latest intentions" is not really relevant: there are two versions, both equally authoritative, and the editor who wishes to prepare a modern edition of the work must decide which of the two versions he wishes his edition to represent. Sometimes, a composer in his dotage will revise a work composed many years earlier, and his revisions will reflect his failing powers; the revised version will certainly represent the composer's "latest intentions," but it is not automatically to be preferred on that account. In short, the concept of the composer's "latest intentions" is valuable but it is not valid in all circumstances; the choice of which among several surviving versions of a work an edition should represent is never automatic.
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