Opus numbers and unpublished works?

[eschiss1]

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

[John H White]

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.

[eschiss1]

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

[giles.enders]

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.

[Delicious Manager]

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.

[Kriton]

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...

[eschiss1]

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

[eschiss1]

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.)

[JimL]

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.

[eschiss1]

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!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Josef Holbrooke's Opus numbers are a nightmare - full of contradiction and confusion.

[JimL]

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.

[TerraEpon]

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.

[chill319]

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.

[eschiss1]

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