W. T. Best's masterly transcription for organ of the overture to 'St Paul' is still available in its C19th engraving (published by Novello). But trying to play from the facsimile makes an already phenomenally difficult piece even harder. While there are numerous errors in the original engraving (especially concerning accidentals, which I have corrected without comment), a greater issue is the not infrequent instances where there is ambiguity as to which hand should play which notes. The root cause of this is the frequent migration of the left hand into the right hand stave. While modern players will be familiar with this challenge from certain urtext editions, it presents especial difficulty in this piece because there are many places where some of the left hand notes are on the lower manual stave while simultaneously others are located on the upper. Moreover, the notes in question on the upper stave are sometimes written in such a way that they appear to belong to the right hand – although to play them thus would be physically impossible. In this edition I have sought to present the music as clearly as possible for the player. This has meant making pragmatic decisions as to which notes should be assigned to the left hand and which to the right. I have attempted to change clefs as infrequently as possible, but as often as necessary.

Although this edition is largely faithful to Best (including his dynamics and phrase markings), players should be aware that I have dispensed with some of his registration suggestions in the opening Andante. In addition, I have made a small number amendments to Best's realisation of Mendelssohn's textures in the fugue so that the manual parts fit under the hands better. Once again, these decisions are pragmatic and, since they are so minor, for the sake of clarity they are not highlighted in the text. A slightly more significant revision, however, is found in bars 133 and 134 where I have simplified the most acrobatic pedal writing. This, in turn, necessitated some adjustments to the left hand in bar 134. I have also chosen to double a 3rd lower the second and third notes in the uppermost voice in bar in bar 132 to match the texture bars 128 and 130, suspecting the omission to be an error in the original edition.

Players who wish to remain faithful to Best's transcription to the letter are encouraged to play from it. Those who would like a (slightly) easier life are invited to use this version.