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I recently made an inquiry to the Stadtarchiv in Bonn about Brambach's Nachlass which is kept there. There is no online list of that collection, but it appears that among other things his autographs to the Piano Concerto op. 39 and opera Ariadne are held there. Regrettably, they reported back to me that they don't have any materials of Brambach's Symphony, premiered in 1863, which was the work I was most looking forward to find.

Too bad. Perhaps that score is in another cupboard someplace else, or not...

[Symphony in G minor]

Symphony in G minor (1852/56): unpublished and 'nicht mehr auffindbar'. i.e. untraceable. Franck himself conducted the first performance on 12th February 1856 in Cologne and a further performance was given on 18th February 1860 in Bern. Interestingly, it is apparently discussed at length, including musical examples, in the Niederrheinische Musik-Zeitung of 8th and 15th March 1856.

The article to those interested is here (with musical examples at the end of part 2):
March 8 (part 1)
March 15 (part 2)

A few libraries have the 2nd Symphony in C op. 78 (Allegro molto vivace–Larghetto–Presto–Allegro non troppo, ma con spirito), but I couldn't find a digitized score.

• Wissenschaftliche Stadtbibliothek
• Royal Academy of Music
• British Library
• Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden

These libraries have the printed edition.

[Friedrich Schneider]

Now that the Köln Hochschule für Musik und Tanz has digitized a bulk of interesting autographs in their collection some time back, there is an easy opportunity to study the full scores of many of Friedrich Schneider's early romantic Oratorios. I took this Easter season as a proper opportunity to set a few of their introductions in Dorico/Noteperformer. I believe only two of Schneider's oratorios: Das Weltgericht and Christus das Kind, have been recorded. I haven't had a chance to listen to Christus das Kind, but at least I thought Das Weltgericht is a worthwhile work in this genre.

Das verlorene Paradies: Einleitung
Youtube

Die Sündfluth: Einleitung & Nr. 1
Youtube

Christus der Erlöser, Schneider's last oratorio: Einleitung
Youtube

Between these three introductions, the most accomplished I find the last one: Christus der Erlöser's. The themes are treated as a fugato and the choral melody "Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen" is also quoted, according to Schneider's (/copyist's) comment on page 3.

[Symphony in C minor]

Now I wonder what his symphonies are like. According to the SPMK booklet, they're unpublished. The Austrian National Library has a large collection of scores, including his Symphony in C minor, Berg-Symphonie and Symphony in D major (all undated). There are also a number of symphonic poems.

Very interesting. But as for the symphonies, it seems to me they only have the instrument parts for them, right? I wonder where the full scores are. It's not impossible to reconstruct a score from a set of parts, but it can be unreliable, often enough, especially if sloppy copyists have been involved in copying out the parts in the first place.

[Concert-Fantasie]

I've just posted a new upload on youtube: Bernhard Scholz's 1881 Concert-Fantasie for piano and orchestra. I've used Scholz's autograph digitized by SBB to recreate this neglected showpiece with Dorico/Noteperformer – it does really shoot through the roof with some fantastically witty, rhythmically charged writing from the midpoint-Allegro con brio section until the end.

I don't have much info on its composition or performance history to share besides the fact that it seems to have been performed several times in 1881–82 and in 1907 according to player markings in the parts (these are described on the work's entries on RISM). A copyist's full score is also extant, but I couldn't find a piano reduction anywhere.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/CttYwmZKBr4?si=YLRmSeOYUqsTYMjz

I recall looking into Borgstrøm's d-minor concerto at one point. There are a total of 295 entries of Borgstrøm manuscripts on the Library of Norway website, many which are just a few pages of drafts for various orchestral works (complete or incomplete!). The listed materials for the D minor concerto were very fragmentary and far, far from finished (from what I recall). But I may be mistaken: please do share your findings here if you happen to be looking further into the matter.

It's a nice coincidence that Mr. Hoffman has decided to transcribe this concerto. I set up to do the same last year but due to time issues I had to put the work aside and I only transcribed some of the first pages. I disagree with Mr. Hoffman about the opening cadenza: I don't believe there's any argument regarding its placement. National Library of Norway has two full scores of this concerto, both of which clearly place the cadenza here in this position, as a bridge between the horn-led opening and the full-force restatement of the main theme that follows after the cadenza.

Anyway, it's a very muscular, excellent concerto by Borgström which should deservedly be noticed. In orchestral guise, the opening pages will sound something like this:

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/nySnMqha4_c

Again, many thanks to Mr. Hoffmann for providing a transcription of the whole work.

This symphony was an early work for Moszkowski. That Moszkowski was a fast learned in his musical studies is evident if one looks at the scores of his earlier incomplete Piano quintet and the Overture in D, for example. The leaps of ambition and progress he took on with the Piano Concerto op. 3 and this symphony is a marvellous thing to witness.

Though the manuscript seems neat and well written on the surface, there were numerous technical inconsistencies and other issues stemming from his lack of experience in writing symphonic works at that point in time. When I wrote the typeset score and parts for Mr. Hobson several years ago, I still regret how difficult producing the notation turned out to be. On the positive side many, many issues were ironed out and fixed since after the preliminary Noteperformer audio that vesteel had posted on youtube. That video doesn't really represent what the symphony is about or how it should sound at its best. My best to Mr. Hobson and others working on this project: they've done some astounding work already with Moszkowski's music, and personally this has been my most awaited release in the series yet!

EDIT: Corrected reference to the piano quintet.

Thank you Alan, Draeseke is a fascinating composer and I believe it's worthwhile to keep pushing his music against the prevailing odds. Perhaps at some point in the future the same consideration might be given to his operas that have recently been given to Raff's, for example?

[Overture to]

I'm happy to present here the score & audio of Felix Draeseke's Overture to his last opera "Merlin". This opera which, like the rest of Draeseke's operas, did not find its way into established repertoire, but at least it was premiered (how successful was the premiere?) in 1906. For this opera Draeseke adapted the libretto from Karl Immermann's 1831 Merlin – an intriguing and uncommon subject for the opera to be sure.

I found this overture a thrilling one, with the usual clever and imaginative handling of orchestral color and contrapuntal expertise by Draeseke. I especially love the way the themes are woven together for the serene and accomplished ending. Sound mixing is not my expertise but I hope it will be ok to listen to. Notating the score was not easy, this being Draeseke, but it proved a good challenge.


YOUTUBE: Link

LIBRETTO & VOCAL SCORE: Link
IMMERMANN'S MERLIN: Link


PS. I had ordered scans of the printed libretto of the opera from SLUB a few weeks ago, which has already been mirrored on IMSLP. It might prove useful reading for those who are interested in the fuller content of this opera.

The Schillerfest of 1859 was celebrated from 8 to 10 November. In Cologne, Hiller's festival cantata "An Schiller's Wiege" was performed just once on November 10, 1859, then forgotten.

I've always had some mixed feelings on Hiller as composer, but then again studying his orchestral scores have positively surprised me more often than not. This cantata is one of those pleasant exceptions and contains many finely written numbers and enchanting passages. I hope you might enjoy listening to it despite the fact that no real voices could be provided: vocal music really is difficult to put together convincingly with Noteperformer.

As for the work's sources: Goethe Universität in Frankfurt-am-Main has the autograph full score and copyist's parts of the soprano, alto and tenor soloists. Frustratingly, Hiller had not written in the words of the chorus in the score. It was very difficult to try adding the texts back in, and I had to give up with this in the finale, which is why I didn't typeset it and the video has manuscript images for that movement.

Youtube: An Schiller's Wiege (noteperformer rendition)

Yes, that's it, Wheesht 

It's a very worthwhile and exciting symphony. It's too bad I didn't know how to attach a scrolling score into the video when I made it in 2020, but you can follow the full score on IMSLP 

Yes the bistum fulda is not the best source with its description of this work. I don't think the brief Andante counts as an independent movement.

This symphony was, I think, performed some years ago - a conductor in Germany inquired with me about the score and parts and I typeset them for her. To my regret I forgot to inquire later how the performance went. I don't believe it was recorded, though.

I've uploaded a Dorico/Noteperformer video of the 6th Symphony's original Andante movement on youtube.

It's impossible to say for certain why Lachner decided to revise and discard this Andante in favor of a new one in the course of the symphony's composition. Regardless, I thought having an opportunity to hear this original movement would not be entirely wasteful. Hope you enjoy it for what it is (keeping in mind obvious shortcomings due to the audio format etc!)

There were several penciled "vi-de" instructions added on top or bottom of the score, but I decided not to follow them so that the score could be heard in full. Played with no cuts and base tempo of the movement (q=72) throughout, performance time is just under 15 minutes. My highlights for the movement are the two poignantly scored, lugubrious passages starting from rehearsal letters B & G.

Youtube link