Here is my realisation of Emánuel Moór's 5th symphony in A minor, Op.53B (1901)
The work is unpublished and obviously unperformed.
The movements are as follows:
1. Allegro moderato (Maestoso)
2. Adagio
3. Scherzo - presto
4. Allegro moderato
The last page has this note after the final bar: Hotel Fürstenhof, Frankfurt 10th January 1901
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMZ-oD9OLPk
Marvellous, Martin! All work on Moór's music is to be very warmly welcomed. Please excuse my minor adjustment to the spelling of the composer's name.
Many thanks indeed for this work, Martin. I enjoyed your realisation very much. It is an accomplished work, though not IMHO a particularly distinguished one. It has some attractive orchestration, but is short on memorable melodic content. Nevertheless, as I said, a most enjoyable listen - and I have a feeling my initial impression may improve on further hearings. I am extremely grateful to have been given, through you, an opportunity to hear this symphony. As Alan says, all work on Moor's music is always exceedingly welcome.
As usual with Moór's music there's a lot 'going on', which I find fascinating. I echo Gareth's comments about the ultimate memorability of the material, but then I'm only on my first listen and I'm sure more will be revealed on subsequent auditions. My suspicion is that Moór's style became more austere with time, but that may just be a feature of this symphony.
Just to recap, these are the composer's symphonies:
No.1 in E minor, no opus no. (1893) - MS
No.2 in C major 'In Memoriam Ludwig Kossuth', no opus no. (1895) - Simrock
No.3 in D minor, Op.44B (1895) - pub. Rozsavölgyi
No.4 in B flat, no opus no. (1898) - Schmid
No.5 in A minor, Op.53B (1901) - unpub.
No.6 in E minor, Op.65 (1906) - pub. Siegel
No.7 in C major, Op.67 (1906) - pub. Siegel
Pensées Symphoniques, Op.75 (1908) - pub. Mathot
No.8 in A minor, Op.92 (1910) - unpub.
Opening is promising, will hear the whole thing hopefully this evening- looking forward to it. Is anyone willing to make mp3s available, does Rêverie have issues with that though? What he does have is my thanks as a fan...
This symphony, marked Op. 53b, follows a Cello Sonata Op. 53, also in A minor. I have not compared them extensively, but they obviously share some material (and some movement titles). That original may also go some way to explain the austerity that Alan speaks of.
Around 1900, a very active period of composition started for Móor, particularly of orchestral works, with four further symphonies (when including Pensées Symphoniques, 1906-1910), the 2nd Cello Concerto in C sharp minor (1906), the 3rd Violin Concerto in E minor (1906), the Cello Double Concerto in D major (1907), and the Triple Concerto in E minor (1907). No fewer than 39 opus numbers separate the 5th symphony of 1901 from the 8th of 1910. While that's an impressive rate of production, many of the works from this period feel eerily similar. Moór's range of orchestral expression wasn't the broadest, I'd say (he's a bit like Smetana in that regard), and while it's always solid I feel myself drawn more to his earlier repertoire, which seems not quite as routine as the pieces from this period.
Looking again at that worklist, I'm suddenly intrigued by the question of whether or not any of his operas will ever receive modern production, and what they're like :) (including a 2-act setting of Sawitri, WoO 160, that I am going to guess is not much like Holst's- assuming the subject's even the same.)
I'd say that was a fairly distant possibility. We don't even have a commercial recording of any of his symphonies.
It's a wonderful treat to hear this symphony, or at any rate, any of the symphonies by Moór. Thank you, Martin!
Purely on musical terms, after a first listen I can't say I enjoyed it to the fullest... it's a little fatigued by uninteresting material, promising better music than it tends to want to develop.
Did you photograph the manuscript yourself? If so, I can appreciate the extra lengths you went to produce this reproduction.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 11 January 2025, 21:30We don't even have a commercial recording of any of his symphonies.
I wonder why that's the case. Atrocious. Are the performing materials perhaps difficult to source?
Some time ago, I posted the second symphony on the Downloads board (https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7470.msg78574.html#msg78574). I think that is a wonderful work: jubilant (there's really no other word for it), with great melodies and development, which help it to sustain its 45 minutes without much issue. It's also quite a good recording (for a radio dub).
From his later works (the batch from the 1900s), I think I prefer the Triple Concerto in D minor from 1907, deals relatively well with the intrinsic issues of the genre. The Second Cello Concerto in D major from the same year is fine as well, but it seems that Moór listened rather too closely to Dvorak's Second Cello Concerto.
Ilja is right: Symphony No.2 is an extremely attractive work and should be recorded commercially.
QuoteAre the performing materials perhaps difficult to source?
Not at all. Scores and parts of the Symphony No. 2 "Kossuth" in C major and Symphony in D minor, Op. 45, together with the Pensees Symphoniques are in Fleisher. MS scores (and, in some cases parts) of
most of the other symphonies are held in the Emanuel Moor archive in Westminster Central Music Library in London (although only a small part of the archive has been catalogued, and the uncatalogued music may be difficult to access). The only problematic symphony is (I think) No. 7 because I'm not sure where a full score can be found and the set of parts, which is all they have at Westminster, is lacking the all important 1st violin part!
However, the Henrik and Emanuel Moor Stiftung (https://www.moor-stiftung.de/index.shtml) has a score of the Symphony No. 6 in E minor.
In 2021 I wrote this in reply to an enquiry by Eric:
"The majority of Moor's mss are held by the Westminster Music Library, but they are not catalogued. I would need to visit the basement again (and I haven't been there for over 12 years) and go through the drawers to see what they actually have. There is a handwritten list of the archive, but my recollection is that a few of the items are missing (or not in the boxes they are supposed to be in). The following symphonies are listed: "Symphony No. 7 in C (full score), Symphony in D min (full score), Symphony No 5 (score & parts), Symphony in A minor (score & parts) [not sure if this is No. 8 or another copy of No. 5 - both are in A minor], Symphony in D min Op 44 (sic) (score & Parts), Symphony No 4 (ms score), Symphony No 6 [no details], Symphony No 1 (ms Score)". Additionally, in the main music catalogue (i.e. separate from the Moor archive) they have listed the printed Full Score and Parts of No. 7 in C, Op. 67*.
The Emanuel und Henrik Moor Stiftung lists full scores of the following symphonies: Symphony in D minor, Op. 45 (1896), pub. Rozsavölgyi; Symphony No. 6 in E minor, Op. 65 (1906), pub. Siegel; and Symphony in C, WoO. 153 (1895), pub. Simrock - this is the one dedicated to Lajos Kossuth, and of which there is a performance on YouTube which has been discussed on this forum.
As you know, Fleisher has score and parts of the D minor, Op. 45 (i.e. No. 3) and the C major, WoO. 153 (i.e. No. 2) which they have wrongly catalogued as the Op. 67 Symphony in C.
That's all I can tell you about Moor's symphonies."
*Since then we have discovered that Westminster does NOT have a full score of No. 7, only the deficient set of parts mentioned above.
I wonder whether the Budapest radio performance of No.2 could be used for a commercial recording?
Sibley Library (& IMSLP) -also- have full scores of the Kossuth symphony (no.2 in C) and the E minor symphony (no.6) published in 1906. Also, MPH has republished these 2 symphonies recently (2017 and 2020).
(Also- all these listings for no.7 that turn out to be holdings of no.2 in the same key, and it turns out that the only actual no.7 is an incomplete set of parts. I wish that the Debrecen, Liszt Ferenc Academy, or Széchényi Libraries had larger Moór collections...)
Edit: Liszt Ferenc does have the D minor symphony, anyway, I should note. "Symphonie in d moll, [für Orchester] [Moór]", 114 page score...
Well, I have just spent all day at the Westminster Music Library going through some of the boxes of Moor's mss. and I am delighted to report that they DO have the MS Full Score of Symphony No. 7 in C. It is bound in 3 volumes - 1st movt; movts. 2 & 3; 4th movt - and is clean and legible. So the 1st violin part could be copied from this to complete the set of parts they already have, and thus enable a performance. They also have a complete set of parts for the 8th symphony.
I will report on my other discoveries later, but I must emphasise I only got through 4 boxes. There are at least another 6. I hope to be able to visit again on 7th January.
Thanks!!
Well done, Gareth, that sounds like a taxing but very rewarding day. Maybe I've lost track, but how, or why, have Moor's manuscripts ended up in the Westminster Library?
Because his wife, the English pianist Winifred Christie, gave them to the library after his death. But, unfortunately, they don't have the staff or resources to catalogue them properly - although they are trying.
Oh well done Gareth. Did they allow you into the off site store then?
If you can ask them to keep the full MS of that 8th symphony handy (in the main library) I will happily get down in the new year and make a typed up copy of that 1st violin part at least, and if time the whole score.
As to having a commercial recording of one of his symphonies, that could be a lot of potentially risky commercial expenditure without a soloist to benefit compared to a chamber music recording, perhaps. I guess it may also depend on how well his other recordings have been doing?
As promised, I give below the results of my few hours before Christmas at the Westminster Music Library. I had time only to examine the contents of 4 boxes. There are many more, so the inventory is by no means complete (I have probably listed about 25-30% of what is there. Please note that the "concertos" box does not represent all the concerto mss they have - same with the "symphonies" box. I know there are a lot more orchestral scores, not to mention the operas, choral works, chamber and piano pieces. I shall be back again on the afternoon of 7th January, but not sure when I will have time to go there again - maybe not until the spring; we will have to see).
EMANUEL MOÓR – Mss at Westminster Music Library
19/12/2025
BOX 1 – Concertos
1. Concertstück for violin, cello and orchestra, Op. 98, in A major
Piano score + solo instruments. 26pp.
[Lausanne, 17 Oct. 1909]
2. Concertstück for violin and orchestra, Op. 143, in E major
Full score. 72pp. 2222 4230 timp., harp, strings
[29 Aug. 1912]
3. Ballade (Concertstück) for violin and orchestra, Op. 143, in E major
Piano/violin score. 10pp. (last page damaged, affecting final 8 bars)
[Lausanne, 30 June 1912]
4. Prelude No. 2 (for cello and piano), Op. 128, in D major; arr. violin & piano
Full score. 8pp.
5. Concerto for cello and orchestra, Op. 61
2nd violin part only. 12pp.
6. Concertstück for piano and orchestra (without opus no. – not the same as Op. 88 below)
2 piano score (incomplete – only 7 pages)
7. Concertstück for piano and orchestra, Op. 88, in E flat minor
(Dedicated to Maurice Dumesnil) 1ére audition: Concert Sechiari, 11 Mar. 1909, Salle Gareau
Full score. 69pp. 2222 4230 timp., strings
+ set of parts: 6 1st violins, 5 2nd violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 3 basses; flutes; oboes; clarinets in b flat; bassoons; horns 1 & 2; horns 3 & 4; trumpets in C; trombones 1 & 2; trombone 3; timpani.
8. Overture, Op. 24
Full score. 58pp. 2222 4230 timp., strings
(Dedicated: "to my dear wife in memory of 1891")
8A. Overture, Op. 24
Full score. 32pp. (incomplete – ends at pencil 36)*
*[marked in both 8 and 8A]
9. 2nd Concerto for cello and orchestra, Op. 64
Piano/cello score. 43pp.
(Dedicated to Casals)
10. Concerto for 2 cellos and orchestra, Op. 69
Piano/celli score. 41pp.
(Dedicated to Pablo Casals and Ghuilhermina Suggia)
11. Piano concerto, Op. 85, in E flat major
Full score. 2222 4230 timp., strings
Movts 1 & 2, pp. 1-71
Movt. 3, Allegro moderato (energico), marked "new Finale", paginated 1-59
12. Concerto for Chromatic Harp and orchestra, Op. 141
Piano/Harp score. 25pp.
(Dedicated to Mademoiselle Renée Lénors)
13. Piano concerto, Op. 85, in E flat major
Orchestral parts: 6 1st violins, 5 2nd violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 3 basses; flute 1, flute 2, oboe 1, oboe 2, clarinet 1, clarinet 2, bassoon 1, bassoon 2; horns 1 & 2, horns 3 & 4, trumpet 1, trumpet 2, trombone 1, trombone 2, trombone 3. Timpani part missing.
14. Piano concerto, Op. 85
2 piano score – with old Finale. 40pp.
+ new Finale (27pp.)
15. Piano concerto in D major (without opus no.)
Full score (printed). Simrock, Berlin, 1894. 99pp. 2222 4230 timp., strings
16. Piano concerto in C minor, Op. 46
2 piano score (printed proofs, corrected in red). 77pp.
17. Violin concerto in G major (without opus no.)
Full score. 136pp. 2222 4230 timp., strings
(Dedicated to Henri Marteau) Lausanne, 1905
18. Concerto for piano, violin and orchestra (without opus no.) in D
Piano score. April 10th, 1911
1. Andante, & 2. Intermezzo – pp. 1-44
3. Finale – Allegro giocoso, paginated 1-15
19. Concerto for piano, violin and orchestra (without opus no.) in D
Full score. 215pp. (but pp. 165-201 missing). 2222 4230 timp., strings
Lausanne, 14 April 1911
19A. Concerto for violin and orchestra (without opus no.) in A minor (marked "early work")
Piano score. 18pp + separate cadenza
[with this is included the 1st movt. of another violin concerto (piano/violin score only) in A major, 24pp.]
BOX 2 – mainly uncatalogued sketches and fragments
[Contents not examined in detail.]
BOX 3 – (contains old index cards of Moór archive, not corresponding to contents)
1. Chant Funèbre for orchestra (9 August 1910)
Full score (34pp.) + parts (2 sets)
3 (picc.), 2 + cor anglais, 2 + bass clart., 2 + contra-bassoon; 4231; timp, perc. (bass drum, triangle, glockenspiel); harp; strings
2. 'Andreas Hofer' – opera. Act I
Full score. pp. 1-136
2A. 'Andreas Hofer'. Act II
Full score. pp. 137-301
2B. 'Andreas Hofer'. Act III
Full score. pp. 302-567
2C. 'Andreas Hofer'. Act IV
Full score. paginated 1-162
2D. Vorspiel zu 'Andreas Hofer'
Full score. 52pp.
2E. Vorspiel to Act IV
Full score. 18pp.
3. Chant Héroique for orchestra
Full score (2 bound copies, both complete; one with 84pp., the other with 90pp)
+ set of parts
BOX 4 – symphonies
1. Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 67 (Vevey, Aug. 1906)
Full score. 1st movt.
2. Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 67
Full score. 2nd & 3rd movts.
3. Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 67
Full score. 4th movt.
4. Bound sketches for Symphony No. 7
5. Symphony No. 6 in E minor, Op. 65
Full score. 192pp.
+ 4 pp. of sketches for a symphony in E minor (but NOT Op. 65)
6. Symphony in B flat [Symphony No. 4]
Full score. 1st movt. pp. 1-46
2nd movt. pp. 47-76
Scherzo ("from 4th Symphonie") pp. 1-35
4th movt. pp. 35(a)-94
+ Schlüss ("from 4th Symphonie") pp. 1-5
All bound in one volume.
7. Symphony No. 8 (in A minor)
Full set of orchestral parts.
Many, many thanks for all this. Were you based off site or at the actual library?
At the actual library. That's the only way you can get to see the mss. I have to emphasise that they are uncatalogued and, to a large extent, unsorted. They just reside in cardboard boxes. The staff have to lug them up two floors from the basement to the Music Reading Room for me. They have been very helpful. It is shameful that they don't have the resources properly to catogue and display the archive, or at least put it in such a condition that scholars can readily access it remotely. But this, I fear, is the way in this country. It wouldn't happen in France or Germany where scholarship and academic/creative heritage are valued.
Thanks. I will get down in the new year hopefully.
Martin, you will have to let them know first by email. You won't be able just to turn up and expect to be able to see the mss. You'll need to make an arrangement beforehand to avoid disappointment. Athen Ayran is the lady to contact.
btw it seems symphony no.8 is Op.92, whether or not published. I added a little of the info you've provided to IMSLP (will remove same at request). Thanks!
Thanks, Eric. It will be good to have that on IMSLP.
By the way, Westminster also, I see, has his cello concerto no.2 Op.64 (full parts apparently if "orchestral set" means what I think?... also for Op.61 and two of the piano concertos - Op.57 and the D major, etc. ...), violin sonata no.1 Op.12, which we're also lacking, violin sonata no.7 Op.74, piano quintet Op.19, and cello sonata no.1(b) Op.53 (not sure about cello sonata no.1 Op.22 :) )