Emilie Mayer: Piano Trio Op.12 in E minor (1861)

[Alan Howe]

Oops - thanks, Eric.

[Double-A]

There is actually quite a list of compositions that Mayer re-worked.  I have been looking into her chamber music some more lately and here is the list (as yet incomplete; there may be more examples).
- string quartet in e-minor (there his a thread here that I started about years ago).
- string quintet in d-minor (there is a thread on that one too).
- The d-minor piano trio.
- The violin sonata in F op. 17 is a reworked version of the "duo" for cello and piano, also in F (quite a bit earlier than op. 17 I think).
- Finally I just recently found this:  Typesetting the cello sonata in B flat Major I encountered very early in the first movement a passage that is exactly identical to a passage from the from movement 1 of the cello sonata in A* (of which I published a typeset on IMSLP).  Looking at the two movements I found that they are related and that the A-Major version is almost certainly the second, reworked one.  I don't know yet if the other three movements are also related or not.

In all the cases I looked at (in detail, since I typeset the scores) the reworking is a thorough overhaul, generally making the piece more concise, the themes more characteristic and the works more mature.

I also typeset two violin sonatas in c and D (never published in her lifetime). The autograph of the c-minor sonata is crammed full with often hard to read pencil corrections, most of them very hard to read and to interpret.  I typeset the ink version of the sonata (which in my eyes is plenty good) but Mayer appears to have a revised version in mind there too.

As to dating the autographs: Mayer's handwriting appears to change over the course of her career and an expert could probably date many autographs by that more accurately than Runge-Woll did. 

* There is a recording on youtube (HIP unfortunately--though I feel that the piano that is used is probably superior (in the many left hand fast passages) to a modern piano but the cellist has all the choppy, phrase destroying technique that one associates with HIP).

[eschiss1]

No possibility of using paper-type-dating as they have with some Classical composer's autographs (based on available paper and known purchases) is there?

[Double-A]

I know nothing about that sort of forensics but it might certainly be worth a try.  This sort of science--requiring a laboratory I suppose--may well cost more money than anybody would want to spend on a "minor" composer.  We'll probably have to live without such an investigation.