Help, please, in locating a Raff score

[Mark Thomas]

Several UC members have connections with libraries and I wonder if I can enlist their help in tracking down a score by Raff which I can't locate anywhere? It's of the Fest-Ouvertüre für Blasinstrumente über vier beliebte Burschenlieder (Festival Overture for Wind Instruments on four favourite Student Songs) Op.124. The piece as written apparently remained in manuscript, but a piano four-hands arrangement by Raff was published by Praeger & Meier in 1865. I can locate neither manuscript nor a copy of the published arrangement. If anyone knows where either is then I'd be most grateful. Thanks.

[Mark Thomas]

Anyone got any ideas?

[mbhaub]

Library of Congress has it.

Link:

http://lccn.loc.gov/unk84176101

Or, go to the LOC site, do a catalog search with just raff fest in the search bar.

Good luck!

[Alan Howe]

I fear it's not the same piece. LOC has Op.117, whereas Mark is looking for Op.124...
http://www.raff.org/music/catalog/opus/op150.htm
Very good of you to look, though.

[thalbergmad]

I am drawing a frustrating blank but have not given up.

Thal

[eschiss1]

doesn't seem to be in, well, quite a number of library-places I tried to think of on my list of libraries-not-covered-well-by-Worldcat (ÖNB (e.g.) has very little it seems, though they do have an arrangement by Richard Strauss of the Bernhard von Weimar march, and a little bit of autograph correspondence... and by Helene Raff, "Die erste authentische Pfitzner-Biographie".) (while looking, I did find out that SBB (Berlin) has digitized a whole other (besides Parole) autograph opera of Raff's (Eifersüchtigen, this time...)   Libraries are wonderful things-- anyways. Sorry. Will keep looking too.)

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks Eric (and Martin). It's good, in a way, to know that my search efforts weren't too shallow! The Berlin Library's digitisation of the Die Eifersüchtigen manuscript was at my instigation, so it's rewarding to see that get some exposure. Presumably that'll end up on IMSLP, Eric?

[eschiss1]

I'm not very good at uploading SBB things (especially since IMSLP guidelines suggest a certain amount of cropping etc. especially for files from libraries that imprint their own extra copyright information - more to the point there's just the sheer filesize to be concerned about) - but another editor may be able to manage it, I hope.

[cypressdome]

The full score, vocal score, and libretto for Die Eifersüchtigen are now available on IMSLP.  The full score as downloaded from SBB was nearly 800mb and converted to black and white it's down to a more reasonable 54mb.  Enjoy!

[eschiss1]

Thanks!!
Raff.org has "chorus?" in addition to voices and orchestra and I find I can't answer that question yea or nay even with the full score, vocal score and libretto before me without anyway taking quite a good deal more time...

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks Cypressdome for so promptly getting Die Eifersüchtigen uploaded to IMSLP.

Eric, I set out the catalogue at raff.org a few years ago, and it now needs updating in the light of new research. As you know I have been taking a break from the site for the best part of a year now, but I'm about to do some minor updates and will correct this error. In the case of Die Eifersüchtigen, the only person (who was was interested, anyway) who had seen the score since it was deposited in Berlin was the late lamented Alan Krueck, who made some notes on it during a survey of Raff manuscripts held there in, I think, the 1980s. I have his notebooks. His notes on the opera are sketchy, and focus mainly on the orchestral aspects of the work, but he did record that there was a chorus. When I received the scans of the manuscript (now made publicly available and at IMSLP) from Berlin six months ago it was clear that the Sbirri (renaissance Florentine policemen), Servants and Boatmen whom he took to be the chorus are, in fact, silent roles. There are seven principals, and that's it. I have prepared a synopsis of the plot; if anyone is interested just let me know.

[Mark Thomas]

Success! I have at last tracked down a copy of Raff's piano four-hands arrangement of the Fest-Ouvertüre Op.124 to the Stuttgart Landesmuseum. I fear that the whereabouts of the original version, for wind instruments, will remain a mystery until the manuscript turns up in some serendipitous way. Thanks to those of you who wrote to me privately about this.