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A Moszkowski Symphony?

Started by eschiss1, Tuesday 29 May 2012, 11:02

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thalbergmad

I would expect that getting a copy of the symphony would be almost as difficult as the mentioned early piano concerto. The BnF would only allow photographs to be taken, so some poor sod has to now construct performance material from 500 odd barrelled photos of variable quality. Decoding the Rosetta Stone was probably easier.

All libraries are different in allowing access to their holdings, but the French Libraries seem to be slightly harder work than most. There is a library in the South of France that I approached a couple of years ago that seems to think they hold copyright on everything from Homer onwards.

Thal


Gareth Vaughan

QuoteDon't you believe it -- and I speak from personal experience!
I know exactly what you mean!

nigelkeay

My wife tells me that one needs proof of being a researcher to get access to certain rooms at the Bnf, I'd probably be classified as riffraff, she on the other hand would probably have a much better chance as a Maitre de Conférence (in English, but has keen interest in music as violinist).

JimL

Okay, send the wife.  You provide the cloak and dagger.   ;)  Maybe she can be allowed to make a copy.  Just our dumb luck that the damn symphony is guarded by Cerberus!

JimL

Hey, maybe we could make an offer the Library Director (or whatever his title is) couldn't refuse! :)

Alan Howe

Quote from: JimL on Friday 01 June 2012, 00:29
Hey, maybe we could make an offer the Library Director (or whatever his title is) couldn't refuse! :)

Hmmm. It would have to be in comprehensible French...

eschiss1

Bien vrai qu'ça, donc pas moi :(

nigelkeay

Quote from: thalbergmad on Thursday 31 May 2012, 20:51
...seems to think they hold copyright on everything from Homer onwards.
I've just been looking at the Bnf site; there's a commercial use license for things that have gone out of copyright ("hors droit").

JimL

Quote from: nigelkeay on Friday 01 June 2012, 09:08
Quote from: thalbergmad on Thursday 31 May 2012, 20:51
...seems to think they hold copyright on everything from Homer onwards.
I've just been looking at the Bnf site; there's a commercial use license for things that have gone out of copyright ("hors droit").
In other words, a label would have to come a-courtin' with hat in hand and comprehensible French.  Right?

nigelkeay

Seems there's certainly a question or two to ask. I ended up looking at this doc: http://www.bnf.fr/documents/autorisation_usage_fr.pdf Perhaps it would be considered a "produit dérivé"? There's an email address to write to there, in any case.

JimL

A good start.  Let's see what we can turn up.

nigelkeay

I thought I'd have a look on the web to find out a bit more about Moszkowski so started with the wikipedia page. This uncovered a rather quirky coincidence: In Paris, he lived on the rue Blanche, and in the summer he rented a villa owned by Henri Murger. That sentence has replicated itself onto dozens of other sites. I live about a 100 metres from a rue Henri Murger, so for a moment thought that this might have been where the villa outside Paris once was, but celebrated figures often ended up with streets named after them in several districts. There's another rue Henri Murger in the 19th district but that's all. In fact it's certain that the villa was at Bourron-Marlotte (rue Murger), out near Fontainebleau. Moszkowski is mentioned on that page. At least I know about Henri Murger now (& the la Boheme connection)...

jerfilm

I was going to post an image of the article on Moszkowski from the 1911 Grove Dictionary but as you might have read in another thread, can't figure out how to add an image file.  Well, the simple upshot is, they list quite a few works - no symphony......

Jerry

eschiss1

I'm not asking if there is one- according to a fairly extensive worklist (see PDF linked to at top of thread) there's a manuscript at a French library (though there may be some questions about completeness that I can't address lacking - for one thing - reading comprehension re PDF... - for another - access to manuscript. But if access can be had eventually to the manuscript and someone somewhere has enough interest, and it's sufficiently readable for the purpose, that might be a start. That's a lot of ifs.

John M Potter

I too have been wondering about the Symphony's key - in the first edition of Grove and in an article by Moszkowski quoted in Bojan Assenov's dissertation, he mentions having written two symphonies in his youth - one must be the one in C major (assuming the key is correct) that is in the Bibliotheque Nationale and the other one must be in D minor, by a process of elimination! My guess is that Moszkowski destroyed the D minor Symphony (or its whereabouts are unknown - perhaps it was never finished and/or orchestrated?) and put the C major one in a binding originally meant for the "Symphonie in D-moll" in a confusing piece of recycling (he was none too well-off in his student days, evidently). Any thoughts on this?