Aloys Schmitt Piano Concertos on Hyperion

Started by patently_obvious, Saturday 02 April 2022, 16:38

Previous topic - Next topic

Gareth Vaughan

I think Hyperion may well do the other concertos - given time. I certainly hope so. I gave them the same list of sources as I gave you.
No, there is no master list that I know of. What I have is the result of my own research conducted over many years. However, the internet makes it much easier to locate scores than it used to be. WorldCat is a basic library research tool; ONB (Austrian National Library) https://www.onb.ac.at/en/ - together with the catalogues of other large national libraries (France, Italy, etc. including, of course, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and many German University libraries: Frankfurt has the Ferdinand Hiller nachlass, for example, and Hamburg has that of Ferdinand Thieriot); a number of the Scandinavian countries have their own national Music Centres who used to be (and maybe still are) very helpful; for orchestral parts the Fleisher Collection at The Free Library of Philadelphia https://catalog.freelibrary.org/ should be your first port of call; a lot of the catalogue entries for the music holdings of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, which are substantial, are not listed online, except via the online images of the old card catalogue (useful, of course, but a bit of pain to trawl through or navigate); in the UK the JISC Library Hub https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/ gives access to details of materials held in many UK national, academic and specialist libraries, but the Westminster Music Library (now part of the Westminster Reference Library), which has a substantial collection of music scores and parts (including a large collection of Emanuel Moor mss), is not part of it and must be accessed separately here.

Gareth Vaughan

I forgot to add: Encore21 is a UK catalogue listing sets of choral and orchestral parts available from various libraries https://iaml-uk-irl.org/encore21/ which I have occasionally found useful.
Not to mention The Library of Congress and the many other splendid libraries in the U.S.A., most of whose catalogues are available online and whose librarians I have found are usually very helpful.
Many printed scores held by libraries can also be borrowed via inter-library loan, even in some cases from abroad.

Basically, you just have to do your research. There are a number of experienced researchers on this forum who will be happy to point you in the right direction but not, I hasten to advise, do all the work for you - but I am sure you don't expect that anyway (though I can think of one person, no longer a member of this forum, who seemed to expect precisely that!).
Finally, may I strongly recommend you explore the piano concertos of Hungarian composer Jakob Gyula Major. There are two, plus 3 "Fantasies" for piano and orchestra. The first, the Concerto Symphonique, Op. 12, was published and Fleisher has score and parts (IMSLP also has the full score); MS scores of the 2nd concerto and the 3 Fantasies are in the Hungarian State Library and, courtesy of that national library, I have digital images of the 2-piano score in my own collection. I think you will find his music very attractive.
Good luck with your work.

Darrel Hoffman

Gyula Major is on my list (just the Concerto Symphonique, which I had found on IMSLP already), so I'll consider that a request - I'm always open to suggestions.  Won't be right away as I've a bunch of other stuff ahead of it, but I'll definitely take a look.  Thanks.

eschiss1

I thought the Fleisher Collection mostly rented to orchestras but would be glad to be wrong.

Gareth Vaughan

I think that is basically right, Eric, but they have in the past lent scores to me. That was probably over 15 years ago, though, and I dealt directly with Kyle Smith then, sometimes by telephone. They might be stricter in their policies now, but I hope not. Anyway, it would do no harm to ask.

Darrel Hoffman

Maybe, but I'm not sure I have enough clout yet to make such a request.  I'm not a professional musician or researcher, I'm just some guy with a so-far obscure and unpopular YouTube channel.  I don't even have a music degree (I was 1 course short of a minor in music theory, but I'm not about to go back to school just to finish that up).

This is a hobby for me, I'm a programmer by trade.  Unless I get to the point where I'm earning an income from this, I'm not sure it's worth trying.  At any rate, I've got enough stuff that's freely available online to keep this going for a while before I need to start seeking offline or non-free sources.


Darrel Hoffman

Hmm, I just noticed that IMSLP gives the Op.76 Concertino the alternate title of "Piano Concerto No.6".  There's apparently another concerto, Op.54, which would make the one I just did the 4th rather than the 3rd.  The Op.54 is also labeled as No.2, but given the Op.14 and Op.34 would presumably predate it, I guess there's a bit of confusion going on with the Schmitt catalog.  I only have this list from IMSLP to go on:
https://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Aloys_Schmitt
No scores or recordings are available for any but the ones already mentioned, at least on IMSLP or YouTube, though possibly elsewhere.

(Note, I'm not asking anyone to look these up for me, unless you really want to, I'm just pointing it out for the record.  I suppose I should change the title of my video to be more accurate?)