Richard Strauss: Overture in A minor

[Mark Thomas]

Many thanks to Mathias for making available in the Downloads board a recording of the broadcast of the premier performance of this rip-roaring piece of Strauss juvenilia. If ever a piece was a candidate for a game of "Guess the composer" then this is it. Once you know it's Strauss then there are clues, but if you don't know....

[semloh]

Yes, many thanks for giving this to us, Mathias.
It's a most enjoyable piece - to be honest, it sounds like Mendelssohn to me!
What are the "clues", Mark (without being too technical! ? The horn passage at 4.00, maybe?

[Mark Thomas]

I don't do technical very well! To me it's all over the place stylistically, Colin: In the slow middle section there are passages of proto-Strauss (or maybe Wagnerian) brass writing and the odd reminiscence of Tchaikovsky (or maybe that's Raff) in the way he handles the woodwinds. There's certainly Mendelssohn in the string writing, and I was also reminded quite a bit in the outer, fast, sections of early 19th century Italian and French opera overtures. But it's all in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. Mind you, I'm certainly not criticising, as he was only 15 or so when he wrote it. 

[DennisS]

I thank you too Mathias for this download. The piece is indeed hugely enjoyable and is quite remarkable bearing in mind that Strauss was only 15 or so when he composed it. Mark has already described some of the influences he has detected in the writing and I can't add to that. Just listen and enjoy!

[mbhaub]

Does anyone know if this is published or still in manuscript? I was hoping to follow a score and a natural source would be IMSLP, but there's nothing.

[britishcomposer]

Does anyone know if this is published or still in manuscript? I was hoping to follow a score and a natural source would be IMSLP, but there's nothing.

It has been published by Schott. Go here and click 'View Score'
http://www.schott-music.com/shop/products/show,317434,,f.html

[eschiss1]

Here's the full title from a "catalog card" from Worldcat, btw...

Ouvertüre a-Moll für grosses Orchester Op. 17, II (o. Op. AV 62) (1878/79)
listed as TrV83 on another.
There's also a concert overture in C minor picked up by the same search (Strauss Richard ouvertüre schott) - A.V. 80, TrV 125, 1883.

I'm guessing that, like a number of publications lately and more and more from these sources now that out of copyright publications are increasingly available online (which has to be eating into their revenue a little) - well, whatever the reason if not that, it seems a good thing anyway - they're going away from republishing Beethoven's Pathetique sonata in a slightly modified edition over and over and over to going deeper and deeper into library manuscript archives (have been noticing this trend, if not in nearly as exaggerated form as I claim for effect here, well, still, more than I expected, when looking at recent publications of music by various unsungs (in a broad sense, not this site's time-and-style-limited sense- I'd apologize if I were so inclined, but - erm... - why?) @ Worldcat for example- lots more publications even by fairly major publishers, of not-before-published works - this has some advantages legally for the publishers, I think, and also for us.

[Richard Moss]

The concert Overture C min is also mentioned in Shott's notes (as per the link kindly provided with the download).  It says it is part of the same concert season as the A min overture.  Does anybody happen to have recorded this 'C min' work too and which they can make available to us fellow UC travellers? 

Best wishes

Richard

[eschiss1]

It would seem so, anyways... See YouTube. (... Erm. I haven't listened yet and am assuming this isn't the A minor work misidentified, as happens, of course. RISM may help/provide incipits. Hrm. Will check. The RISM entry on a ms of an arrangement of the C minor  provides interesting information- dedicated to Hermann Levi, etc. - see here - but no incipits to compare. According to Schuh, the C minor was premiered in Munich 28 November 1883 by the dedicatee.

The entry for one copy of the A minor overture (1878-9) at RISM at the Richard-Strauss-Archiv gives its orchestration and some other information (dedicatee) but again no incipits... (following through to the link at the Richard Strauss Archive - still no incipits but some really interesting details - if like me one tends to find such details sort-of-interesting - on the manuscript score(s).