While in the process of transferring some scores from the National Library of Spain to IMSLP I ran across a work by Raff that has been misidentified by the original publisher and whose actual identity eludes me. The work can be found here: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/3782966 (http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/3782966). It was published around 1877 by Choudens who identified it as Nuit étoilée: nocturne pour piano, op.29 which it can't be as opus 29 was destroyed by Raff according to the catalog at raff.org. Please enlighten me Raff gurus! Thanks!
As you say, it isn't op.29. Whatever it was originally, it has been retitled I think because from memory (I can't access my references just now), there's nothing with a title like "Starry Night". I'll check and get back to you.
Phew! Not too difficult this time. It is his Op.39, not 29: Notturno d'après une Romance de François Liszt, written in October 1847 and published by Kistner the same year.
Thanks for the quick response! I hope you don't mind me asking but how were you able to identify it? Opus 39 seems to be a rare score judging from the few institutions reporting it in their holdings through Worldcat. It also doesn't appear to have been among his more popular compositions during his lifetime as I can only find references to the Kistner first edition--no reprints, no subsequent editions. Do you have a copy of or an incipit from the Kistner edition? Thanks!
Hrm. Just noticed something myself...
Actually, it's been scanned in at BSB. Right here (http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0007/bsb00077232/images). All the more reason for us to upload it to IMSLP in both versions, I should think, the Kistner and the Choudens... :)
Thanks Eric! It appears that BSB just added it to their digital library on Oct. 23d but I guess I missed seeing it in their RSS feed.
They have picked up the pace again lately- I was surprised by that Herbeck upload (... for another topic, there...) (interesting "digitisation on demand" thing though, I hadn't known about it)
cypressdome asked
QuoteI hope you don't mind me asking but how were you able to identify it?
I'd like to say that it was my encyclopaedic knowledge of Raff but actually I have a PDF copy of the score. Not the Kistner original (grateful thanks to Eric for tracking
that down) but a later French edition. I just looked through Raff's Nocturnes until I found it. Simples...