Unsung Ballet Music

[Alan Howe]

Here's the suite from Les Deux Pigeons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMz-PTMdZPY

[Martin Eastick]

This would seem to be an appropriate place to mention Moszkowski's "Laurin: Ballet in drei Abtheilungen und sechs Bildern" Op53, which was given its premiere in Berlin in 1896. I do have a  piano reduction of the complete work, but the problem here, as ever, is trying to locate the orchestral scores and parts so that it can be included (hopefully) in Toccata's ongoing Moszkowski project. If anyone here can provide any further information, this would be of great help! Fleisher does have several excerpts with orchestral material, but NOT the complete ballet which, judging from the reduction, deserves to be included with the other orchestral works in the pipeline!

[Alan Howe]

Pierné's 'Cydalise et la chèvre-pied' is a gorgeous piece. If you like Ravel's 'Daphnis et Chloë' you should love this!

[tpaloj]

I could not find Laurin via the usual suspects (bnf, sbb, worldcat, rism) either. Assenov states that full performance mats were published 1895 by bote & bock. Given the ballet's premiere was a fiasco, it was never staged in complete form after that, besides a few excerpts and single numbers published separately.

There's just a few likely options left: the performance material might be left at Berlin Royal Opera's archives after the premiere, which would be my best guess. Or they could be in storage of the publisher: that will probably not be an easy route to make inquiries, given that B&B merged with Zimmerman and Lienau later on. Thirdly, they might be uncatalogued and hiding in BNF in some stack of M's other manuscripts....

[Martin Eastick]

Many thanks for your suggestions, Tuomas. I did make some initial investigation at Bote & Bock some years ago, but to no avail unforetunately. However, it may be worth another try! I suppose that an orchestration could be done, especially with the help of the isolated numbers which are available from Fleisher.

[Mark Thomas]

The piano reduction and partiturs for several orchestral excerpts are held in the Berlin library.

[alberto]

I share affection for Piernè Cydalise et le Chévre-Pied (I own recordings by Martinon -suite n.1 and by the less known J.B.Mari- suites n.1 and n.2).

[eschiss1]

This looks like it might be a fully orchestrated excerpt from Laurin, I can't tell.

[eschiss1]

RAM categorizes some of their Laurin excerpts, HW (Henry Wood) marked, as under Orchestral sets. Maybe?

[Gareth Vaughan]

This looks like it might be a fully orchestrated excerpt from Laurin, I can't tell.

Score and parts for this (which is described in their catalog as Op. 53, No 3) are also in Fleisher.

[tpaloj]

There are a few excerpts like the no.3 with published orchestral parts and all. Worldcat lists "Sarabande und Double" and "Danse des fées Roses" etc found easily in some libraries... but it's not much consolation with the full ballet score totaling 2½ hours missing in action. Like said in my previous post, maybe the Staatsoper Unter den Linden might be worth contacting – even if it's a very long shot – by someone who can present the matter in German...?

http://theaterarchive.iti-germany.de/index.php?id=279