Franz Lachner's 2nd & 4th symphonies; an appeal.

[John H White]

Franz Lachner's 2nd & 4th symphonies are available in manuscript form on the Internet at IMSLP  & at a German web site whose name escapes me*. I have tried downloading and printing off some movements for No 4, but, with my poor eyesight these days, I find them extremely hard to read and have given up attempting to copy them into Sibelius score writing software. Around 20 years ago, when my eyesight was a lot better, I managed to copy the whole of Spohr's 2nd symphony from a manuscript facsimile into Noteworthy software 7, more recently, I copied Lachner's 6th and 3rd symphonies from printed originals into Sbelius(including that huge boob I made on the metronome marking of the slow movement of the latter!). However,now well into my 89th year, I feel I can no longer attempt such a task. Therefore, If any member of this forum who has any of the score writing softwares such as Finale, Sibelius,or Notion or even the much less expensive Noteworthy, which I used for a good number of yeas before I could afford anything more expensive, and if wish to give us some new unheard music from Franz Lachner,could please volunteer to have a go at it? Remember, once you've got your score into any one othese softwares, you can not only hear a rough a ready version of the music but  writing out the individual instrumental parts becomes a doddle. I was able to do that with Noteworthy to get the orchestral parts for my own 2nd symphony for a private performance back in 2002.
Anyone who wishes to take on above challenge will have my full support, as much as
I can give.
      Cheers
           John
*Try Munchener Digitalisierungzentrum or MDZ,
         

[Alan Howe]

Good to hear from you, John. Let's hope someone might respond...

[tpaloj]

I have always been very enthusiastic about these sort of projects.

Some time past, I helped create some movements of Moszkowski Dm Symphony's audio recording, which was then completed and uploaded on youtube by another member here. In that project, I started with Noteworthy, but later used Musescore for the most part. For a long time, Musescore was my go-to software thanks to its surprising versatility and free cost. Lately, I took the plunge and bought Dorico, which indeed has been total bliss. Such a great software to work with, compared to the disgusting interfaces of Finale and Sibelius...

At the moment, I'm just about finalizing editing Ernest Pingoud's third Piano concerto (for a publisher) - besides which I've almost completed creating Dorico audio performances of Pingoud's "Cor ardens" and "La derniere aventure de Pierrot" (these I'll put up on youtube when they are ready). This is, to say, I'm a little busy at the moment... 


I couldn't promise any quick progress or anything, but I would love to take a look at these symphonies of Lachner. I take it there are no manuscript parts available, only the full partituras...?

[MartinH]

Boy, looking at the manuscript of the fourth, this would be a monumental undertaking. If there could be a guarantee of at least a reading, preferably a performance, it might be worth the task. But the work involved would be formidable.

[John H White]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your kind replies
Tpalloj in particular. You seem to be even busier than I was in my"prime" around 20 years back. As far as I know, there are no sets of parts available for these symphonies. What you said about Dorico interests me. Am I right in assuming that this is the software created by the whole Sibelius team when they were taken on by that German firm whose name eludes me after their dismissal by the American owner of Sibelius in favour of cheaper labour from eastern Europe? That's why I've never updated my Sibelius beyond version 7. I gather its easier to use than Sibelius which I find much easier than Finale.
  Getting back to those Lachner symphonies. My usual rate of working copying from the printed page is around 1hour per page. That, of course, would add up to about 200 hours for a 200 page symphony.. However, I find the hand written version of the 4th Symphony so difficult to decipher, that the first page took me several hours;so I doubt very much that I could copy out the completescre in what little is left of my lifetime! Hence my plea for help.
     Cheers,
         John

[eschiss1]

(1) if you have an account on imslpforums (you don't need an imslp account for this) there are quite a few people who regularly work on typesetting there who you could ask about this
(2) except that several of us use different preferred typesetting software (eg Lilypond for me) with likely mixed results, I suspect one possibility might be a collaborative effort.
(3) I confess I am a little surprised the parts are nowhere. I would have thought it possible that the orchestra that premiered them (... was either of them ever performed?) might have had a copy of the parts somewhere - maybe and still and hopefully.

[tpaloj]

Thank you, John. You are absolutely correct regarding Dorico's genesis. It is indeed very effective software and easy to work with. If its development team is able to keep making updates and fill in some missing features only Finale/Sibelius currently has, it is on track to rivaling and surpassing both, eventually.

I can sympathize with your failing eyesight, but I actually find Lachner's handwriting pretty straightforward to read. Lately as a personal challenge, I set myself to decipher Pingoud's "The Last Adventure of Pierrot" manuscript which is just a complete mess. The publishers website has a sample of that manuscript: https://nuotisto.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/store/bcbc19d239b48c9cb2252769e76ab171c3a2c7bd9b599768f76217232481. I think it would take me less time to write a whole Lachner symphony than just the 35 pages of that Pingoud score.

Sorry to say that I won't be able to finish any of the Lachner 2nd/4th symphony movements any time in near future, but perhaps a sample of the few beginning pages may be useful to hear to someone.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/adcx2foiw6uwpma/Lachner%20-%20Symphony%20no%204%20-%20sample%20audio%2C%20first%20movement.mp3?dl=0

[gprengel]

Dear John, this is really an interesting undertaking. Actually I have done the same with Mendelssohn's unfinished 6th symphony from a handwritten score of 80 measures
(see my thread http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=7008.0 ). I don't think I have the time to do the whole score but I might start with the beginning of the Allegro part of the 2nd symphony. Or is the 4th symphony more promising? I am not sure about the quality of the works. I'm just listening to the 5th symphony in youtube which has a good main theme but the rest is not so convincing to me ...

Gerd

[eschiss1]

Well, on the basis of the quality of his -6th- symphony (even though that's only in MIDI, but is on YouTube) or the recently-recorded 3rd (on cpo)- which might be better than the 5th, I say go for it. I've put up incipits for each movement of the 2nd (@ IMSLP) for what it's worth...

[eschiss1]

The score of symphony no.2 is listed as being "Unter der Presse" (as Musikalisches Archiv, No. 14) in the April 1834 "Intelligenzblätt" of the AMZ (right after symphony no.1, same page, but that one is listed as being published that year I think). The April 1834 section is indeed devoted to Diabelli publications. Wonder what happened...

Also, the 2nd symphony was performed ("Lachner produirte..") sometime around February/March 1834. That answered that question. (See AMZ 5 March 1834, page 159 etc.)

[John H White]

   Thank you, gentlemen, for your further replies and offers of help.
      According to Dr Harald Mann, who appears to be an authority on Franz Lachner and his composer siblings, the 2nd Symphony met with thunderous applause at an 1835 performance.
   Sadly, heavy Allied bombing of many German cities during World War II, must have destroyed much printed matter and manuscripts along with everything else. This would possibly account for the difficulty in finding scores and parts of many musical works including these 2 symphonies.
     Cheers,
         John.

[gprengel]

I have begun with the Scherzo of the 2nd symphony - it sounds great! What is special about the piece is the great use of counterpoint in the Scherzo!
My question is: in what line are the french horns and where the trombones?

Gerd

[tpaloj]

I think it's unfortunate instrument names are not written in margin except for the first page of the score. You have to look at the start of the first movement to be sure. From top down:

Flutes
Oboes
Clarinets
Horns 1-2
Horns 3-4
Bassoons
Clarini (trumpets)
Timpani
Trombones 1-2
Bass Trombone
Piccolo (ad libitum)
Violins I
Violins II
Violas
Cellos
Contrabassi

[eschiss1]

Also, some manuscripts introduce instruments in the middle of things rather than on the first page (unlike most published scores), so caveat

[gprengel]

The last 2 days I was quite dilligent in about at least 12 hours to edit and record the Scherzo of the 2nd symphony - a remarkable piece! The Scherzo is really furious whereas the Trio is moves me with its simplicity and melodious singing of clarinet and basson accampanied with most tender strings.

I ignored the trombones and horns 3 and 4, but even without these the brass is quite heavy (maybe even too loud in the beginning?).
I hope you enjoy this piece as I do!

www.gerdprengel.de/Lachner_symph_2_Scherzo.mp3
www.gerdprengel.de/Lachner_symph_2_Scherzo.pdf

Gerd