Rudolf Friml's Piano Concerto

[pcc]

Has anyone looked into performing or recording Rudolf Friml's Piano Concerto in B-flat major? There is something labelled "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra III" with MS score and parts in Boxes 93 and 94 in the Friml Collection at UCLA, and I know of no other work for piano and orchestra by Friml so I am guessing it is that work, especially as in the chronological order of boxes it seems likely (and there is nothing labelled "I" or "II").  As far as I know it has been either given very few or no performances since Friml himself premiered it at Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch on 17 November 1904, and it was never published. Most sources - including Friml himself - give the wrong date ("1906"), wrong orchestra ("New York Philharmonic") and even wrong key of the work ("B-major"). The earliest orchestral work of his I am familiar with is his 1906 intermezzo "A Garden Matinee", which my orchestra plays and which was recorded by the Victor Orchestra under Walter B. Rogers in New York on 7 November 1906; the little intermezzo is charming, but Friml was known as a good orchestrator, was a brilliant pianist, and had a fiery temperament (to say the least). I expect this concerto, whatever it is, would certainly be worth looking at; if it is the early B-flat work, Friml thought enough of it to keep it to the end of his very long life, even he seems to have only played it in public that one time when he was 25.

[Gareth Vaughan]

If a photocopy of the score can be obtained there is the chance to interest a pianist and recording company. Hyperion, of course, comes to mind first, but others may be interested. However, nothing can be done without seeing the music.

[dhibbard]

I know from experience, that the first stage in any performance -recording is to transcibe the MS into a program (Sibelius) so that parts and the conductor score can be printed.  However, I suppose funding or a GoFundMe process has to be started in order to bring it to the attention of a major recording label like Hyperion or Naxos. A quick search on Amazon shows that Koch has released some of his piano works.   From experience, the scoring into Sibelius from MS  (manuscript) may take as much as 3-4 hours per page of score.  However, if the MS and parts are still in good condition, they can be used in a performance.
I have noticed recently, that a few Naxos recordings have some funding behind them essentially, to pay for the orchestra and recording.  Its a win-win for Naxos.