Manuscript works we'd like to see (found and) reconstructed

Started by eschiss1, Sunday 02 January 2011, 23:22

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eschiss1

Chill319's last (recent- not necessarily last ,now) in the anniversaries thread made me think of this topic, as did IMSLP user Matesic's yeoman's work resurrecting string quartets from England from the earlier part of the 19th century from manuscripts in the Royal Academy of Music library (and using notation programs to prepare modern editions, and often recording them too.)  My first two submissions are two? found and one not-yet-found work-
1 - Stanford's 2nd violin concerto (only in piano score? still, an edition and recording even of that would intrigue.)
2 - Stanford's unpublished chamber music (cheating here :) - 2nd piano quartet and several string quartets) - if still in existence, very curious about these too.
3 - Karl Goldmark - 2nd violin concerto. where'd this walk off to? who knew violin concertos could grow feet? (did it devise an escape plan with Brian's manuscript 1st and Wieniawski's 3rd?) if found, want to see and hear. thank you.-- the undersigned. ;)
ah, adding (sorry) - the unpublished Franz Lachner symphonies.
well, one could go on :)

Eric

thalbergmad

Much important work has been done, but to me the real important job is to get manuscripts digitalised first of all before they get lost/damaged or simply fade away. Then worry about typsetting and performances.

I understand from the Librarian at the Royal Academy of Music that they have no funding to preserve their archives and I expect this is the same for most if not all UK libraries, so the work of interested individuals and groups is vital.

God knows what masterpieces have already been lost.

Thal

Syrelius

The work that I wish were found is the "real" Sinfonie Capricieuse by Franz Berwald. According to his wife, Berwald had finished a symphony with this title, but after his death, only the unfinished work now known as Sinfonie Capricieuse could be found. There are three alternatives:
a) Berwald never finished the Capricieuse, so the work we have is the only one that has actually existed.
b) The symphony that we know as the Capricieuse was finished, but it has disappeared in its final form.
c) There is a "real" Sinfonie Capricieuse that is lost. The symphony now known as Capricieuse is a work that Berwald for some reason chose not to finish.

If alternative c) turned out to be the correct one and a "new" Berwald symphony turned up somewhere, it would be the discovery of the decade (or even more) to me! However, it seems that today, most people believe in alternative a)...  :(

Rob H

I would love to think that the Piano Concerto by Carl Tausig wasn't destroyed in bombing during the 2nd world war; a forlorn hope maybe but maybe it lies languishing in an archive somewhere - hopefully keeping the Litolff first concerto Symphonique company.
Rob

albion

The following full orchestral scores (those marked * exist in vocal score):

Havergal Brian - symphonic poem Hero and Leander (1905-06); English Suite No.2 (1915); choral works By the Waters of Babylon (1905/09)*, The Vision of Cleopatra (1908)*, Prometheus Unbound (1937-44)*

Frederic Cowen - Symphonies 1 (1869) & 2 (1872); cantatas St Ursula (1881)* & The Transfiguration (1895)*; operas Thorgrim (1890)*, Signa (1892)*, Harold (1895)*

Cipriani Potter - (speculative) five or six additional symphonies

Arthur Sullivan - burlesque opera Thespis (1871)

Alan Howe

Draeseke's VC in its orchestral version (probably lost in WW2) - although Professor Müller-Steinbach is producing a performing version from the piano reduction...

Gareth Vaughan

Holbrooke's "Dance" Symphony - sometimes known as the 3rd Piano Concerto - for piano & orchestra. Only the 2-piano score exists.

Lost works I'd like to find are too numerous to mention, but certainly the Carl Tausig PC and Litolff's Concerto Symphonique No. 1 would be among them. And any of the concertante works for piano & orchestra by Dora Bright (apart, of course from the ones in MS at the RAM - and those need digitising).

Rob H

Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Monday 03 January 2011, 12:17
Holbrooke's "Dance" Symphony - sometimes known as the 3rd Piano Concerto - for piano & orchestra. Only the 2-piano score exists.

Lost works I'd like to find are too numerous to mention, but certainly the Carl Tausig PC and Litolff's Concerto Symphonique No. 1 would be among them. And any of the concertante works for piano & orchestra by Dora Bright (apart, of course from the ones in MS at the RAM - and those need digitising).
All sounds very interesting. Certainly the Holbrooke - (when will we hear the second concerto?). Dora Bright - I wonder if she is the transcriber of The Strauss Neu Wien Walzer that was recorded by Mark Hambourg? If it is her I only know her name in that context - would love to hear her Concertante works.

Pengelli

And John Foulds very intriguing sounding 'Symphony of East & West'. Bet it was good too! (Hovhaness eat your heart out?). Oh well,the next time I'm in Calcutta............

Peter1953


eschiss1

Quote from: Peter1953 on Monday 03 January 2011, 16:37
Hans Huber's VC and PCs 2&4.

I wasn't sure whether to include "existing but possibly almost unrescuable works" in re the piano concertos, whose orchestral scores ? parts? exist but are unusable for practical purposes (I think.) ...
though ... maybe they're good enough for conjectural reconstruction à la Mahler 10, just better... :) and also, then again it's conceivable Huber had a copyist make a second set of parts for the piano concertos and they've just gone missing. And even a 2-piano recording of the piano concertos would have an appeal for fans - not enough of us for Cameo Classics or a similar existing label to take an interest, unfortunately, but the example of AKCoburg and the Tyrol Museum should be in the back of one's mind for those who -really- want such things done, I am guessing. (I mean, if it comes down to that, I haven't even -heard- any Rufinatscha - yet! - but on April Fool's Day was so pleased by the "discovery" of the 3rd symphony that I looked forward to the discovery of the parts of some of the others that only existed in piano score, to hearing ... well, tangent, sort of.)
Eric

Mark Thomas

I'd love Hans Bronsart von Schellendorf's two lost symphonies to resurface and it would be good to track down any of the symphonies of Heinrich Hirschbach, too. They're not officially "lost", but I've never been able to find the whereabouts of any of them. I believe that von Suppé's Symphony has been found but the promised recording is mired in protracted contractual limbo, I understand, so it's still lost to most of us.

I'd second many of the wishes above, but particularly Draeseke's Violin Concerto and Litolff's First Concerto Symphonique .

Finally, you'd expect me to add some Raff works to the list: the lost E minor Symphony (a five movement precursor to An das Vaterland), the Festival Overture and his first attempts at a Piano Trio and a String Quartet were all performed and praised during Raff's time with Liszt in Weimar, but as early as 1888, six years after he died, they were recorded in the definitive catalogue of his works as being "lost" (but not "destroyed"). The intriguing "Festival Overture for Wind Instruments on four beloved student songs" now only exists in the piano four hands version; it would be interesting to compare it with Brahms' Academic Festival Overture. Finally, but perhaps most important, there are five operas still in manuscript and the big (and much praised in its time) "Fairy-tale epic" cantata Dornröschen. Luckily the manuscripts have all been digitised and so the music is safe , if not readily accessible.

Pengelli

Another 'Dornroschen'? I was just 'drooling' over the new cpo of the Humperdinck? The excerpts sounds rather nice,but it's a 'Singspiel'!) I'm a sucker for that kind of thing,if it's well done! And this one's an epic cantata by Raff? From what I've heard so far it's got to be worth hearing. Could it ever happen?

eschiss1

*sneaks head in* Krommer symphony 8 (the lost one). I'd like to see all of them recorded anyway even though an author who's actually seen all the scores of the eight existing ones finds no.7 to be a serious disappointment (and I'm not even sure if I've heard nos. 1, 2 and 4, the three that have been recorded, let alone the un-numbered one that's received a Czech radio broadcast- there are a couple of brief un-numbered symphonies in addition to the 8-out-of-9 numbered... er.. whatever.) Wyn Jones doesn't seem to care for no.3 that much either I seem to recall but thought 9 a good conclusion to the series... so... good to find out if he's right- hrm. Thought they were all republished but I was thinking of Ferdinand Ries for whom this is in fact the case (Ries & Erler, appropriately, published all the Ries symphonies in 2002). Still, some of them do have modern editions, anyway...
Also, those 2 lost Röntgen violin concertos known only because of their presence in a worklist of his (several aren't lost, but his first two are, apparently.)
(Just sticking to unsung, or I'd mention all those almost-certainly-lost Bach cantatas, etc.)
Eric

TerraEpon

Anything by my favorite composers.

For starters, a good HALF of the works of Gottschalk.

Rachmaninoff's Manfred (orchestra version if it's actually the same as the piano suite), and Two Episodes a la Liszt

Lots by Sibelius, not just the 8th Symphony. Original versions of Swan of Tuonela and The Bard. "Fencing Music". Circus March. Orchestral version of Cantata for The Helsinki University Ceremonies of 1897. Some songs and a couple piano works. And a couple missing movements from extant works, as well as piano parts missing from cello pieces.

Tchaikovsky's The Romans in The Coliseum, Boris Godunov, and the rest of Udina. Also The Tangle, Characteristic Dances, and Mentenegro.

Debussy's Psyche (which is what Syrinx came from). Also Rapsodie in the Style of Liszt, Intermezzo for orchestra, and whatever the heck the violin and cello pieces that are a mess actually were.

Granted all of these except Gottschalk aren't unsung, but eh...it's what I know of