Schubert: "Alfonso & Estrella" Overture arr. f

[aldona]

I have an arrangement of Schubert's overture to "Alfonso und Estrella" for piano solo.

The score is from the "Collection Litolff: Ouvertures pour piano seul", no date, edition no. 9166, plate no. 2097.

Arranger not identified (presumably by the composer?)

Publisher described on front of score as "Henry Litolff's Verlag in Braunschweig."

On the back page: Imprimé en Allemagne/ Printed in Germany.

Anyone got more information on the copyright status?

And another question for the Schubertians out there: if it's uploadable, do I put it under D.732 (with the rest of the opera) or D.759a?

aldona

[Lyle Neff]

PLEASE put it under the work page for the opera, not on a separate page. It can go under "Excerpts, arrangements, etc."

(There's already too much splintering of whole works on IMSLP as it is. )

[aldona]

PLEASE put it under the work page for the opera, not on a separate page. It can go under "Excerpts, arrangements, etc."

(There's already too much splintering of whole works on IMSLP as it is. )

Yes, but... don't blame me... blame O.E. Deutsch.

Have a look at the Deutsch catalog of Schubert's works.

D.732 = "Alfonso & Estrella", opera in 3 acts
D.759a = Overture to "Alfonso & Estrella"
D.773 = Overture to "Alfonso & Estrella" arranged for piano duet

Likewise:
D.796 = "Fierrabras", opera in 3 acts
D.798 = Overture to "Fierrabras" arranged for piano duet

I agree it would be nice to keep more parts of splintered works together, but how to do this while keeping the correct catalog or opus numbers?

Any Schubert scholars out there?

aldona

[pml]

My 2¢: Put everything related to Alfonso und Estrella under D 732, even if there are secondary Deutsch numbers such as D 759a.

I agree with Lyle for what it's worth. The Lizst pages are abominable for this sort of thing. The sensible approach where essentially the ONE piece has several distinct versions (overture full score/piano four hands/piano solo etc) should use redirects to go the main page. It may cause a little headache for IMDBP, but otherwise, gather things together. For example, the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream page includes the overture Op. 21 under the banner of Op. 61, which is a sizeable work in its own right in comparison to the incidental music, so if I'm going to quibble, its just that the page for that work should either omit the Opus number or indicate the two numbers: "Opp. 21, 61"

EDIT:

Schubert was pragmatic and often reused pieces if he was short of time: the history of the Rosamunde overture (D 644 or D 759a?) is a classic example of this, and I got a little confused w.r.t. Fierrabras: there is a separate piano version of that overture (D 798) as well as the piano version of the Alfonso und Estrella one (D 773). Again, Schubert had his hands full composing the opera or the incidental music (as the vocal music had to go into rehearsal sooner than just the purely orchestral music), and adding the overture was something he did later on in the process. As Alfonso und Estrella ended up being rejected for performance, the overture that he intended for it ended up being pressed into service for the first perfomances of Rosamunde in December 1823. The rather batty Helmina von Chézy relates that the orchestral parts arrived only 48 hours before the premiére, if she is to be believed.

Regards, PML

[Lyle Neff]

As I've indicated, my philosophy is to put the smaller extract under the larger work. That's why I moved the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream overture to the page for the full incidental music, and made sure there was a note explaining that Op. 21 became subsumed under Op. 61.

The same should be done with Beethoven's Egmont overture -- because it belongs with the rest of the incidental music (which has not yet been contributed). Likewise, the suites from Tchaikovsky's ballets really should be placed on the work pages for the respective entire works, IMHO.

Compare the page for Smetana's Má Vlast. Even though Vlatava is the best known, most played of that set of symphonic poems, it belongs on the page for the collective set, as it is. The four music dramas of Der Ring des Nibelungen should be done this way (with redirects available from the individual titles, of course), but I'm to lazy right now, and don't really want to mess with Wagner anyway.

[aldona]

For what it's worth, the opera "Alfonso & Estrella" and its overture are listed by two separate work numbers in the Gesamtausgabe (I'm at work now so I don't have my copy of the Deutsch with me, so I can't remember which specific numbers).

In addition, the overture is identified (in my piano version and in the opus listing on IMSLP) as Op.69 No.1.

I can certainly put the overture under D.732 to keep things together, but the purist in me also wants to link it to D.759a and Op.69 No.1 so people can find it that way.

However, we haven't established its copyright status yet, so I may not be uploading it at all and this discussion might be a bit premature.

Aldona

[pml]

Sure, I admire the purist angle, but the pragmatist in me says to put the overture in with D 732, and have D 759a redirect to it. As I said, Schubert only separated out the two compositional tasks because of pragmatic considerations.

Basically, it's one of those musicological decisions that Deutsch made, and I know why he did it, but it makes things a nuisance for everyone else.

When Holoman did the Berlioz catalogue he took the other approach, even though it means that the one catalogue number may have a principal work dating from e.g. 1856–58 (H 133, Les Troyens) but then you have several other derivative works (H 133A, the Prélude à Les Troyens à Carthage, H 133B Marche troyenne, the concert version of the Chasse royale et orage, etc.) dating from several years later in 1863.

Six of one, half of a dozen of the other. Basically, real life can be complicated!

Best, PML

[Carolus]

I tend to agree with Lyle on the issue for the most part. However, that opens up the whole can of worms with Searle's Liszt catalog - where every version of a work made by the composer has a separate (and completely unrelated) number. Also, for the Tchaikovsky ballets, we have the issue of already very long pages being made if we include the suites. Also, in Tchaikovsky's case, the Opus numbers are simple auxiliaries like Op.20a and Op.66a. The same issue applies to Wagner's Ring, perhaps even more so as files are added.

I think that in Schubert's case, the separate numbers are pretty scarce so it will actually be less confusing if we put everything one a single page, though maybe pml's redirect idea is the best of all.

[Carolus]

Back to Aldona's original point, I think most of the Litolff piano solo transcriptions were actually made by Louis Winkler (1820-1886). Litolff churned out literally hundreds of such transcriptions in the 1860s and 1870s. They often failed to credit the transcriber, who was typically paid a flat fee to produce the transcription back then.

John Philip Sousa, the Amercian composer, was employed by the Philadelphia publisher Coleman to make transcriptions and arrangements of this nature before he became director of the Marine Band. His name appears on only a few of the 'potpurris', etc.

[pml]

Regarding the issue of long pages:

probably an idea more appropriate for the thread of "ideas" for Feldmahler, but there are certain repertoire works where the number of possible editions, transcriptions, orchestral parts, are in danger of skyrocketing, and making the idea of a "work page" virtually unmanageable.

Over at CPDL there are a number of pages for the cornerstones of the choral repertoire, which have exactly this problem: Messiah, Bach B minor and St Matthew Passion, etc.

The Mozart Requiem page here at IMSLP is already well on the way in that direction, and that's only counting the traditional Mozart/Süßmayr/Eybler/Freystädtler/Stadler version: $DEITY help us if any of the other seven (any advance on seven?) realisations turn up, by Beyer, Maunder, Druce, Robbins Landon, Levin, Tom O'Drisceoil, and Gordon Kerry.

EDIT: and there’s another contender in the Requiem stakes, a Brit named Simon Andrews... that makes eight besides the traditional one...

As for the can of worms that is the Searle catalogue, I personally think it's rather detestable, but we seem to be stuck with it. C'est la vie.

Regards, PML

[Lyle Neff]

I'm very much in favor of having some mechanism that places orchestral parts (as opposed to parts for chamber music) on a separate sub-page "attached" to the main work page. Could the link to the parts seemlessly be incorporated into the "Contents" box at the top? The problem would be making sure that uploaders are aware of how/where to put the orchestral parts.

(I still think the Tchaikovsky ballet suites need to be put under the main, larger work. That is, unless something comparable to the above idea for orchestral parts could be employed for the suites as well.)

As to different PD versions of large, unfinished works, maybe the solution would be to have a separate work page for each edition, with the arranger added as a qualifier, e.g.:

Requiem, K.626 (Sussmayr) (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus)

[pml]

Hi Lyle, and all,

Multiple cans of worms! Yummy... well perhaps for some...

Tchaikovsky
I tend to agree you that the suites ought to go with the main work. It does raise problems of cogency: if someone uploads files, is it going to be immediately obvious that they relate to the entire ballet or the suite. Perhaps not; a violin part for the entire ballet is not going to be easily mistaken for a similar part for the suite (or is it? Refer to the Schubert case below). The potential exists for a degree of confusion.

Mendelssohn
On the other hand – just to show how these issues are very far from being clear cut – I disagree with Lyle on another point, as I tend to think the Mendelssohn overture is the more important work, even if it isn't the larger one, and prominently should not be subsumed under Opus 61. The incidental music came to be written only because the overture was so popular and influential a work, and many of the movements were directly derived out of the overture.

The overture is also the firm repertoire piece, and the incidental music much less so: aside from the Scherzo, Allegro appassionata, Nocturne, and Wedding March, for which you don't need vocal soloists and chorus!, it is rare to hear the entire suite performed, especially with all the fiddly little bits Mendelssohn intended to go around the dialogue. "A Midsummer Night's Dream, Opp. 21, 61 (Mendelssohn, Felix)" is to my mind the most accurate summation of the following, more pedantic and accurate description:
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Overture, Op. 21, 1826; Incidental music, Op. 61, 1842 (Mendelssohn, Felix)

Schubert
Sometimes the misidentification is the fault not of the uploader, but is due to the score or parts supplied. Over on the Rosamunde page, the violin parts there were misidentified on the PDF itself as D. 797, when the overture (whichever one of the two possibilities you think is right!) is a completely different catalogue number to the incidental music. The uploader therefore presumably thought the parts related to the incidental music, when a quick inspection confirmed they had nothing related to it at all; they were parts exclusively for the overture from D 644.

Redesigning work pages: requires very careful thought!
Any redesign of work pages to hide or obscure getting at a variety of parts and scores would have to be carefully considered, for the danger of making the site radically less useful to the casual visitor as well as more experienced users, who might visit the site comparably less often than the dedicated contributors I remember there was a newbie question elsewhere about, "why am I only getting the first page" which was because s/he was clicking the thumbnail picture rather than the actual PDF link! A bad redesign would stand to multiply the newbie question by a significant amount and stand to put off some visitors who drop in only when they need a particular score.

Mozart and "partners"
Also, re: Mozart's Requiem: let's not go the way of multiple brackets as per your suggestion, if it can be helped... apart from demeaning the role by retaining only the surname of the "arranger" but keeping the full name of the "composer", it just appears damn ugly to have multiple brackets (stuff here) (and more stuff here). (I also would dislike nested brackets as a solution (since they are generally just as much of a nuisance (especially for dealing with multiply nested punctuation)).) I know I am one of the worst offenders in this respect, but one bracket is already more than enough.

The resulting URLs also become much uglier if they have to be hardcoded - as for example URLs with brackets break on this forum! (Even daphnis overlooked this, posting a moment ago in the Fauré thread.)

The reason for treating the "arranger" as the minor partner is somewhat inappropriate, simply because of the amount of compositional activity required to manage a completion, depending on the amount of extra work required: for example, I would not claim to have done anywhere near the work required by a Mozart Requiem completion, in having done a completion of Schubert's B minor symphony. Very grey line here.

As I discussed with one of the composers whom I listed above he regarded his work as more of a collaboration between multiple composers, one of whom happened to be the "silent partner".

Regards, PML

[Carolus]

Lyle mentions:

I'm very much in favor of having some mechanism that places orchestral parts (as opposed to parts for chamber music) on a separate sub-page "attached" to the main work page.

I have mentioned to Feldmahler that something similar to a "sub-page" would be very helpful in such situations. Specifically, I was wondering if an extension to the WikiMedia software could be written whereby each workpage would have a series of tabs which would serve as sub-pages for exactly this purpose.

In a case like an opera, the main workpage could thus be for the complete opera in its original form - full scores, vocal scores, and maybe piano-solo scores only. Orchestra Parts go on a separate "tab", as do famous excerpts, transcriptions, suites, etc.

[aldona]

OK, I'll upload the overture and put it under D.732 (with links to D.759a and Op.69 No.1)- I'll leave the copyright tagging to someone with more detailed information.

aldona