A specific question really, though no reason it can't anchor a general one.
I was looking some while back at Garland Publications' edition of three symphonies by Ferdinand Ries (symphonies 1, 2 and 9 - now called 1 2 and 7). All three had opus numbers, and the first two seem to have been reprinted, reasonably enough and as seem to have been that edition's usual but not invariable practice, from early published scores. Op.121 (symphony 7 in A minor) however seemed to be taken from a manuscript facsimile. This leaves a few possibilities-
1 -there was a published score but, like many 20th century scores (but unlike, I think, many 19th century ones), it was a manuscript facsimile;
2 -there was a published score but comparison with the manuscript revealed so many errors that it was better to publish the manuscript instead (hrm, shades of certain contemporary works indeed)
3 -there was no contemporary published score.
If 3, it seems unusual (it would not be for the 20th century, but this was a 19th century composer) to assign an opus number to the work. (He did not, for instance, to his symphony in E-flat, recorded by cpo as no.8. I haven't seen that cpo recording, whose notes may clear all of this up completely.) Is there a reason and story here with this work (no.7) (re choices 1,2,3,), and very generally has there ever really been a rhyme or reason of any sort assigning opus numbers to music? (Not for nothing with Krommer's, for another example, confusing opus number situation- double assignments of the same opus # to different works e.g.- did Padrta feel the need to create a more systematic catalog of his output... anyways.)
Eric
According to the CPO sleeve notes, Ries sold the manuscript as soon as it was finished in July 1835 to one publisher who went on to sell it to another Viennese publishing house owned by one Tobias Haslinger who, without the composer's knowledge, entered it anonymously in the symphony competition arranged by the Vienna Friends of Music, which was won by Franz Lachner's massive 5th symphony with Otto Nicolai's one and only symphony as runner up. It seems Haslinger didn't bother to get it printed and Ries seems to have lost interest in having it performed.
Quote from: John H White on Monday 02 August 2010, 21:39
According to the CPO sleeve notes, Ries sold the manuscript as soon as it was finished in July 1835 to one publisher who went on to sell it to another Viennese publishing house owned by one Tobias Haslinger who, without the composer's knowledge, entered it anonymously in the symphony competition arranged by the Vienna Friends of Music, which was won by Franz Lachner's massive 5th symphony with Otto Nicolai's one and only symphony as runner up. It seems Haslinger didn't bother to get it printed and Ries seems to have lost interest in having it performed.
That actually does explain the opus number (181, not 121, my mistake) then. Thanks. (Link doesn't exactly work; deleted- edit :))
Ries's opus numbers are certainly confusing as they frequently don't relate to the date order in which they were written. An example is his 5th piano concerto, in D, sometimes known as The Pastorale. It is opus 120 and I am confused about composition dates as 1815 seems most likely but 1823 is often quoted. Incidentally there is a concertino woo 88 which suggests there is a lot that he left unpublished.
Opus numbers can sometimes be very misleading and unhelpful when one is trying to work-out the chronology of a composer's works. Until the late 19th century (I think), opus numbers tended to be assigned by PUBLISHERS rather than composers in the order that music was published (not necessarily the same order it was written!). This is why, just for example, Beethoven's opus numbers can lead one astray sometimes. Some relatively early works bear opus numbers which make them seem like later ones (such as his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, which has the opus number 85 when, in fact it, was written 1803 but not published in until 1811 - hence the late opus number). Another, even more extreme Beethoven example is the early Octet, which although written in 1792-93, bears the opus number 103, which would place it chronologically from more than 20 years later. Interestingly, the arrangement Beethoven made of the Octet for string quintet bears the much more representative opus number '4'. And then, of course, there are all the works which don't opus numbers at all (most of them now bear WoO numbers [Werke ohne Opuszahl])
Another composer whose opus numbers can confuse is Dvořák. The composer mislaid many of his earlier works (eg symphonies 1-4) and had others published out of order (eg Symphony No 5 was published as Op 76 AFTER Nos 6 (Op 60) and 7 (Op 70). Works such as the 2nd String Quintet Op 77, Symphonic Variations Op 78 and the String Quartet in E major Op 80 were published some ten years earlier than their opus numbers might suggest.
Quote from: Delicious Manager on Tuesday 03 August 2010, 14:07
Another composer whose opus numbers can confuse is Dvořák.
How about Schubert? I find it funny and a bit sad as well that e.i. Harmoniamundi, who did a lot of Schubert chamber music over the years, persist in giving the opus numbers instead of Deutsch catalogue numbers. Not helpful at all!
Opus numbers be of historical interest, though, since they show us which compositions were easily accepted by publishers at the time, and which ones (the W.o.O.) were often deemed "unsellable".
The only composers that lies good with opus numbers must be Brahms, since he was able to publish every one of his compositions not long after composing them, and furthermore, destroyed virtually all of his unpublished works. I remember reading he even wanted to assign the reworking of his op.8 piano trio the number op.108 - with which the publisher sadly didn't go along. This of course caused the first version of his op.8 to all but completely vanish from the repertoire... And who the hell would nowadays know/play Schumann's ABEGG variations if they hadn't been published under op.1?
I reckon that for us, on the unsung forum, opus numbers don't matter all that much, but it is amazing how they helped to create a canon of repertoire beyond which most people (and musicians!) are not easily lured...
In 19th century music journals one sometimes sees Mozart compositions referred to by the opus numbers they had acquired in his time. Now that can confuse a modern sensibility... (let's see, I already know that even as Mozart was getting started, opus 1 had been assigned by publishers twice possibly with his knowledge, to two different sets of his violin sonatas written over a decade apart I believe, the first of them for violin-or-flute - hrm, I think- anyway. - if Alfred Einstein is reliable on that first count... so yes- the "Haydn Quartets" (the 6 quartets starting at K387 and ending with 465, now) in one music journal (Neue Zeitschrift?) I used to pore over back issues of... (... don't ask :( ) used to be referred to as Opus 10, back in the late 1800s... but then again, how else to refer to them?
Hrm. Edit: thinking about that.
The Köchel catalogue (version 1) came out in 1862.
Probably took awhile to gain ground, though...
Eric
Quote from: Kriton on Tuesday 03 August 2010, 14:31
Quote from: Delicious Manager on Tuesday 03 August 2010, 14:07
Another composer whose opus numbers can confuse is Dvořák.
How about Schubert? I find it funny and a bit sad as well that e.i. Harmoniamundi, who did a lot of Schubert chamber music over the years, persist in giving the opus numbers instead of Deutsch catalogue numbers. Not helpful at all!
Opus numbers be of historical interest, though, since they show us which compositions were easily accepted by publishers at the time, and which ones (the W.o.O.) were often deemed "unsellable".
The only composers that lies good with opus numbers must be Brahms, since he was able to publish every one of his compositions not long after composing them, and furthermore, destroyed virtually all of his unpublished works. I remember reading he even wanted to assign the reworking of his op.8 piano trio the number op.108 - with which the publisher sadly didn't go along. This of course caused the first version of his op.8 to all but completely vanish from the repertoire... And who the hell would nowadays know/play Schumann's ABEGG variations if they hadn't been published under op.1?
I reckon that for us, on the unsung forum, opus numbers don't matter all that much, but it is amazing how they helped to create a canon of repertoire beyond which most people (and musicians!) are not easily lured...
I'm surprised actually- according to Calum MacDonald, if I remember correctly, he asked that the two versions of op.8 be available simultaneously. And having heard the early version of op. 8 several times, starting in Prof. Claudio Spies' seminar on Brahms' Chamber Music back in 1988 :)... (back in college- introduced me to a lot of Brahms works I just didn't know, and I'm so glad I took that; but anyway), I'm especially surprised. The early version has, indeed, just about dropped from the repertoire- other early works of Brahms (opp. 1, 5, 10...) have some of the same weaknesses but more strengths, it seems to me. But MacDonald is, I think, right too that the revision cost the work a few things (some lovely tunes, especially. What I miss most about the first version of Schumann's 1841/51 symphony- is a tunelet in the finale that got replaced in 1851 by yet-another-copy-of-That-Motive but that's going tangentially.)
Quote from: Delicious Manager on Tuesday 03 August 2010, 14:07
Another composer whose opus numbers can confuse is Dvořák. The composer mislaid many of his earlier works (eg symphonies 1-4) and had others published out of order (eg Symphony No 5 was published as Op 76 AFTER Nos 6 (Op 60) and 7 (Op 70). Works such as the 2nd String Quintet Op 77, Symphonic Variations Op 78 and the String Quartet in E major Op 80 were published some ten years earlier than their opus numbers might suggest.
Dvorak switched publishers. Hence some of the works have two opus numbers. The correct (and earlier) opus number for the 5th Symphony is 24. When it was published as Op. 76 it was published as his 3rd Symphony because he thought he had burned his 1st Symphony (he hadn't) and either suppressed or forgot about the remaining early 3. Now that the proper order has been restored the correct listing is:
#1 in C minor, Op. 2
The Bells of Zlonice#2 in B-flat Major, Op. 4
#3 in E-flat Major, Op. 10
#4 in D minor, Op. 13
#5 in F Major, Op. 24
#6 in D major, Op. 60
#7 in D minor, Op. 70
#8 in G Major, Op. 88
#9 in E minor, Op. 95
From the New World.
The Op. 2 1st Symphony is more often known as B. 9 from Burghauser's cataloging of Dvorak's works. Op. 2 now belongs to the String Quartet #1 in A Major.
Actually, I hadn't thought sym. 1 had an opus number at all. There's a reason I prefer just using Mr. Burghauser's numbers... but unfortunately as John Wiser pointed out in a Fanfare review once, practically all editions of his Dvorak work catalog have gone out of print it seems!
Josef Holbrooke's Opus numbers are a nightmare - full of contradiction and confusion.
If anybody has any of the old Kertesz or Kubelik LPs of the complete Dvorak symphonies he can back me up. I may be mistaken, though. It could have been Op. 1.
Dvorak has no less than three pieces that are Op. 14, IIRC...there's also a case where a cycle of choral songs is split in to two seperate opp.
Or what about Raff? He had a number of early pieces with Op. numbers, didn't like them and wrote completely unrelated ones to take their place.
Gottschalk also has a number of pieces with more than one number because he had more than one publisher.
Then there's also composers where certain Op. numbers just aren't there, like Chaminade and Gliere (although only one or two in the case of the later)
Oh, and Sibelius's Op. 1 is made up of a song songs with a Christmas theme, but were composed at varying times in his career.
The sequence of published opus numbers by Edward MacDowell begins at opus 10. I can only imagine that the composer of opus 10 was embarrassed by works of his teens and chose to leave them unpublished. In the 1890s MacDowell assigned opuses 1-7 and 9 to lighter piano and vocal works. He may have assumed that low numbers, presumably associated with youthful works, would dissuade critics from measuring these pieces by standards they might otherwise invoke.
Although the 1890s candidate for MacDowell's opus 8 was announced, it, too, seems to have been suppressed. The opus number therefore has the curious distinction of having been abandoned twice by MacDowell.
This attitude certainly contrasts with the bold endeavor of a Dohnanyi, Rachmaninoff, or Stenhammar, to name a few of the many who published more ambitious opus 1s -- if not opus 10s.
A recent book on American composer Henry Holden Huss notes that some of his opus numbers were purely conceptual really- his opus 23 (I think) was meant to consist of four pieces, which were all composed, but three of them ended up in three other published opus groups, and only one was actually published with the opus number 23 attached to it (but not as "opus 23"; it was still, amusingly and confusingly, published as "opus 23 number 2" or something like.)
Eric
Quote from: chill319 on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 03:28
The sequence of published opus numbers by Edward MacDowell begins at opus 10. I can only imagine that the composer of opus 10 was embarrassed by works of his teens and chose to leave them unpublished. In the 1890s MacDowell assigned opuses 1-7 and 9 to lighter piano and vocal works. He may have assumed that low numbers, presumably associated with youthful works, would dissuade critics from measuring these pieces by standards they might otherwise invoke.
Although the 1890s candidate for MacDowell's opus 8 was announced, it, too, seems to have been suppressed, The opus number therefore has the curious distinction of having been abandoned twice by MacDowell.
This attitude certainly contrasts with the bold endeavor of a Dohnanyi, Rachmaninoff, or Stenhammar, to name a few of the many who published more ambitious opus 1s -- if not opus 10s.
Gade's, Nielsen's (often played and rather good Little Suite...), Samuel Barber's (serenade for string quartet or string orchestra, which I used to listen to very often during my college years fwiw :) ), Prokofiev's (a bold though not characteristic first sonata), and very very especially Brahms' piano sonata (not his first but a very great early one) in C... (the scherzo op. 4 preceded that by a few years, but who's counting, and this is a pleasant topic itself- ways composers say Hi There! or something-like...)
Eric
But I think biggest oddity of all?
Debussy's String Quartet, Op. 10. No other pieces have an Op. at all.
Also, Albeniz has a bunch of pieces in random places. His Op. numbers get into the 230s...maybe 30 pieces have numbers.
Elgar, Stanford and Mackenzie were very tidy in their opus-designation - pretty much a direct chronology. Sullivan gave up after Op. 4 (Kenilworth), as did Cowen after Op.3 (The Rose Maiden). Ethel Smyth gave up on the idea of opus numbers very early (in the 1880s) and I don't think that Bantock ever entertained the idea. I seem to recall that somebody allocated opus numbers posthumously to Parry, but it has not been taken up - has anyone else come across this?
As Gareth said, when it comes to British composers nobody could possibly beat Holbrooke for re-allocation, duplication and general confusion. He clearly loved to list and catalogue his music - quite large works appear in early publisher's advertisements (for example the overture The New Renaissance and the cantata Heaven and Earth) complete with opus number attached, only to vanish in later ones, often without trace. Perhaps they were never in fact written or did not get beyond the draft stage. Some pieces underwent changes in intrumentation, some were simply retitled as belonging to another genre, some works ended up with two or three possible opus numbers, some opus numbers ended up with two quite unrelated compositions attached to them ...
Debussy labelled his String Quartet in G minor as 'Op 10' for publication, even though none of his other works have opus numbers. The young composer wanted to make a 'splash' with this piece and though an opus number would lend additional credibility to the piece. He chose '10' because he wanted something with double figures, yet which indicated it was an early work of a promising composer.
Quote from: TerraEpon on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 06:43
Also, Albeniz has a bunch of pieces in random places. His Op. numbers get into the 230s...maybe 30 pieces have numbers.
His piano sonatas, which are very charming neo-Scarlattian pieces, have a confusing numbering alltogether, because of the composer himself: apparently, the 1st & 7th sonatas never got beyond the sketchbooks and his 2nd & 6th sonatas never even have been composed - so we remain with nos. 3 - 5... Which we only call nos. 3 - 5 because the composer wanted us to do so. If I remember correctly, that is...
So, can anybody confirm the opus number of Dvorak's Bells of Zlonice? I still say it was either Op. 1 or 2.
One of the odder opus situations is that of Emile Waldteufel. He never assigned opus numbers to his dances, nor did his principal publishers (who were British -- Hopwood & Crew), but once Waldteufel contracted for simultaneous European publishing with Henry Litolff's Verlag, Litolff began assigning opus numbers retroactively for works already published as well as new compositions, regardless of their original composition or publication dates elsewhere, and this is how they are still often classified. (I think Litolff began with op. 101.) Then this kept up when Waldteufel changed publishers again late in his career, to August Cranz. Ironically, many of Waldteufel's best-quality and best-known pieces accidentally fall in Litolff's fabricated op.145 -170 range -- Violettes (op. 148), A toi (op. 150), Mon reve (op. 151), Les sirenes (op. 154), Pomone (op. 155), Toujours ou jamais (op. 156), Pluie des diamants (op. 160), Ma charmante (op. 166), Toujours fidele (op. 169), Dolores (op.170). You don't even get to Les patineurs (The Skaters) until op. 183...
Thanks for the information on Waldteufel - still a very underrated composer, along with Ziehrer, Millocker and Eduard Strauss. At least with the Strauss family, opus numbers were assigned with some consistency, although the huge gaps in Eduard's catalogue are very frustrating and may relate to his wholesale destruction of the Strauss archive in the early years of the 20th century.
Quote from: JimL on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 16:44
So, can anybody confirm the opus number of Dvorak's Bells of Zlonice? I still say it was either Op. 1 or 2.
According to the main Czech Dvorak site (http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/uvod/ (http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/uvod/)) the first five opus numbers with their Burghauser equivalents are:
Op.1 String Quintet No.1 in A minor (1861) [B7]
Op.2 String Quartet No.1 in A major (1862) [B8] - opus number also allocated to
Songs (1881) [B123-124]
Op.3
Evening Songs (1876-1881) [B61, which also incorporates Opp.9 (1879-1880) and 31 (1882)]
Op.4 Symphony No.2 in B flat (1865) [B12]
Op.5 Piano Quintet No.1 in A major (1872) [B28]
Symphony No.1 is listed as B9 without opus number (1865). Clear as a bell, then. ???
Hrm. It's possible that older editions or recordings of Dvorak's symphony no. 1 had an opus number that has since been dropped, of course, but at least library catalog listings I can find for the Kertesz and Kubelik LPs make no mention of this.
Eric
This problem of opus numbers seem to afflict a lot of composers! I think I read somewhere that some composers assign them as they write whereas others start when works are published.
Anyway, Tausig appears to have 3 opus 1s - an Impromptu, Das Geisterschiff and Two Concert etudes and only goes up to op.6 (IIRC) before abandoning the idea of using them. Liszt did a similar thing, his opus numbers go up to 10 but have gaps so it's just easier to use the Searle numbering system (rather than the Raabe one).
I also think I read that some of MacDowell's works were published under a pseudonym (Edgar Thorne, IIRC) which may be why his earliest works numbers are so confusing.
Quote from: eschiss1 on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 17:56
Hrm. It's possible that older editions or recordings of Dvorak's symphony no. 1 had an opus number that has since been dropped, of course, but at least library catalog listings I can find for the Kertesz and Kubelik LPs make no mention of this.
Eric
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happened, Eric. No, you'd have to actually have one of the old LPs to see what I'm talking about. I think Steven B. has an extensive collection, maybe Amphissa as well. Look for the Kertesz on London. I think Kubelik did his for DGG. Which reminds me. I currently only have the 7th in my collection. I really want the 5th and 6th as well. Those are really his best 3 symphonies (the 2nd being his 4th best IMHO).
Quote from: Jonathan on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 18:22
I also think I read that some of MacDowell's works were published under a pseudonym (Edgar Thorne, IIRC) which may be why his earliest works numbers are so confusing.
Some of MacDowell's early opus numbers were attributed to Edgar Thorne and some (as with certain popular novelists today) to MacDowell writing as Edgar Thorne. THe idea was that royalties for anything appearing under Thorne's name were to be distributed to a charitable cause. As MacDowell was either unable or unwilling to sound like anybody but himself, musicians and critics quickly identified the actual composer.
I think Draeseke's worklist offers a particularly rich field for comparing the merits and downsides of assigning opus numbers to works.
Thanks for the additional information Chill319, so i did remember correctly after all! :D
Quote from: Albion on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 17:27
Quote from: JimL on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 16:44
So, can anybody confirm the opus number of Dvorak's Bells of Zlonice? I still say it was either Op. 1 or 2.
According to the main Czech Dvorak site (http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/uvod/ (http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/uvod/)) the first five opus numbers with their Burghauser equivalents are:
Op.1 String Quintet No.1 in A minor (1861) [B7]
Op.2 String Quartet No.1 in A major (1862) [B8] - opus number also allocated to Songs (1881) [B123-124]
Op.3 Evening Songs (1876-1881) [B61, which also incorporates Opp.9 (1879-1880) and 31 (1882)]
Op.4 Symphony No.2 in B flat (1865) [B12]
Op.5 Piano Quintet No.1 in A major (1872) [B28]
Symphony No.1 is listed as B9 without opus number (1865). Clear as a bell, then. ???
According to the fifth edition of Grove (ed. Blom, 1954, volume II, p.840), the
Bells of Zlonice symphony was 'originally' Op.3. Given that the symphony was unpublished and considered lost until 1923, this is perhaps a little odd. The 1961 supplementary volume to the fifth edition contains myriad corrections to entries in Dvorak's work-list but does not include any amendment regarding the first symphony (Supplementary Volume to the Fifth Edition [volume X], pp.114-116).
Op.3 is also cited on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%28Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%28Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k%29) and seems to be in use on the websites of several record companies, including Decca (http://www.deccaclassics.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4300462&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&ALBUM_TYPE=CD&start=10&presentation=list (http://www.deccaclassics.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4300462&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&ALBUM_TYPE=CD&start=10&presentation=list)) and DG (http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4631582&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&start=10&presentation=list (http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4631582&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&start=10&presentation=list)), although my booklet from the 1991 release of the Kertesz set makes no mention of it!
Quote from: Albion on Friday 06 August 2010, 08:14
Quote from: Albion on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 17:27
Quote from: JimL on Wednesday 04 August 2010, 16:44
So, can anybody confirm the opus number of Dvorak's Bells of Zlonice? I still say it was either Op. 1 or 2.
According to the main Czech Dvorak site (http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/uvod/ (http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/uvod/)) the first five opus numbers with their Burghauser equivalents are:
Op.1 String Quintet No.1 in A minor (1861) [B7]
Op.2 String Quartet No.1 in A major (1862) [B8] - opus number also allocated to Songs (1881) [B123-124]
Op.3 Evening Songs (1876-1881) [B61, which also incorporates Opp.9 (1879-1880) and 31 (1882)]
Op.4 Symphony No.2 in B flat (1865) [B12]
Op.5 Piano Quintet No.1 in A major (1872) [B28]
Symphony No.1 is listed as B9 without opus number (1865). Clear as a bell, then. ???
According to the fifth edition of Grove (ed. Blom, 1954, volume II, p.840), the Bells of Zlonice symphony was 'originally' Op.3. Given that the symphony was unpublished and considered lost until 1923, this is perhaps a little odd. The 1961 supplementary volume to the fifth edition contains myriad corrections to entries in Dvorak's work-list but does not include any amendment regarding the first symphony (Supplementary Volume to the Fifth Edition [volume X], pp.114-116).
Op.3 is also cited on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%28Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%28Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k%29) and seems to be in use on the websites of several record companies, including Decca (http://www.deccaclassics.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4300462&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&ALBUM_TYPE=CD&start=10&presentation=list (http://www.deccaclassics.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4300462&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&ALBUM_TYPE=CD&start=10&presentation=list)) and DG (http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4631582&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&start=10&presentation=list (http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/single?sort=newest_rec&PRODUCT_NR=4631582&javascript=1&per_page=10&COMP_ID=DVOAN&start=10&presentation=list)), although my booklet from the 1991 release of the Kertesz set makes no mention of it!
Op. 3, then. You'd actually have to get a look at the original album sleeve of the Kertesz LP. By 1991 whatever the current designation/dropping of the opus number is may have already been in place. All I know is it had an early opus number just prior to the B-flat, and Op. 3 sounds just about right.
I can remember a time when Dvorak's symphonies were numbered from 1 to 5, No5 being the New World Symphony. Around 1960, as far as I can recall, Supraphon issued a complete cycle of all Dvorak's symphonies including the more recently discovered early ones, on a set of LPs
Quote from: John H White on Saturday 07 August 2010, 23:03
I can remember a time when Dvorak's symphonies were numbered from 1 to 5, No5 being the New World Symphony. Around 1960, as far as I can recall, Supraphon issued a complete cycle of all Dvorak's symphonies including the more recently discovered early ones, on a set of LPs
Conducted by Vaclav Neumann? Apparently it was at least partially reissued on Artia in the US around that time (that year may be exact rather than an approximation even). Even a little later, around 1962 (perhaps as late as 1982 if I read right) recordings were still issued of individual Dvorak symphonies with the older 3-1-2-4-5 numberings (Bernstein on Columbia in '62 it seems.)
Eric
That obsolete numbering (starting with the D Major, Op. 60) as #1, had the F Major Symphony numbered as 3, Op. 76 (its republication number). As I recall, Dvorak had been using another publisher (B&H?) when Brahms introduced him to Simrock. I'm not sure if the F Major Symphony had been published previously as Op. 24, or if that number was simply assigned by Dvorak, but he thought highly enough of the work to include it in his canon, unlike the first 4.
Gareth, something struck me as odd regarding the new Dutton recording - Pandora hasn't got an opus number. Holbrooke was perhaps one of the most zealous cataloguers of his own music and continually reassigned opus numbers to certain works, but this brief ballet hasn't got one and isn't mentioned in Lowe's book (although that was published in 1920, the same year as the score was written). The lists of Holbrooke's works that I've seen only contain works to which an opus number is ascribed, so this brief ballet doesn't raise a mention. I'd describe Pandora as not insignificant - are there any other Holbrooke scores without opus numbers?