Strauss-Risler Till Eulenspiegel

[cz4p32]

Well, this has been a several year project for me.  After watching Francesco Libetta's marvelous performance of this unknown transcription I had to find the score.  After much searching I was able to find the manuscript at the Bibliotheque Nationale De France.  However, the score was terribly illegible.  So, I decided to do a typeset edition, I'm hoping to maybe even get it published.  In any event, there are still many many corrections and editing that needs to happen here, as I've not gone through the score with a fine tooth comb yet, and there are a few sections of score that were either completely illegible, or cut off the photocopy I have.  If anyone has any suggestions, comments or wants to help out with corrections please let me know.  Next step will be trying to learn the piece!

[thalbergmad]

Incredible work, must have taken you ages.

Well done that man.

Thal

[ahinton]

Well done, but there are quite a few issues to be dealt with, for which I regret I don;t have sufficient time to help you with right now (much as I'd like to); that said, perhaps the biggest issue of all is likely to be that of getting the necessary permissions from the Richard Strauss Estate for the distribution of your edition and for performances from it - and, having had some seriously protracted experience of this kind of thing in respect of Sorabji's piano transcription fo the closing scene from Salome, I can only wish you luck!

Best,

Alistair

[cz4p32]

Well like I said, there are plenty of errors I need to work out.  I have been in contect with Mr. Libetta in the past and he volunteered to help me iron out the bugs, however I think his email address has recently changed.  If somoene has his current one and could share that would be great.  Last we corresponded though he was willing to help me.  As far as the Strauss estate goes, since this is a transcription by Edouard Risler, wouldn't the rights to distribution be through him not Strauss?

[thalbergmad]

I don't think so, as if memory serves AH had to get permission from the Saint Saens estate in order to perform the Sorabji transcription.

Thal

[cz4p32]

interesting.  Well since Libetta has performed this piece, hopefully he will be able to get the rights for publication.  That is, if there would be enough interest to publish it.  I think it's a great piece, and wish it were performed more.

[ahinton]

I don't think so, as if memory serves AH had to get permission from the Saint Saens estate in order to perform the Sorabji transcription.

Thal

The Strauss Estate.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

I have no idea why i mentioned Saint Saens.

Just plain idiocy i guess. Perhaps i was thinking of Samson instead of Salome.

Thal

[ahinton]

I have no idea why i mentioned Saint Saens.

Just plain idiocy i guess. Perhaps i was thinking of Samson instead of Salome.

Thal

I wouldn't worry about it if I were you - as long as you don't go on to confuse Strauss's Daphne with some other French composer's Daphnis et Chloé, you should be OK...

Best,

Alistair

[cz4p32]

Back to the piece in question...

What are your opinions on this transcription? 

[mephisto]

I have heard Libetta's recording (from the DVD), and it is extremely virtousic (SP?). Maybe not the best transcription in the world but it is entertaining.

And thanks for making this copy, because I read that there was only one copy in the world.

[mikey6]

Surely that's not playable at the orchestral tempo?

[cz4p32]

Surely that's not playable at the orchestral tempo?

Have you seen the Libetta video of this?

[soliloquy]

Woah measure 345; that's unreadable.  Ferneyhough impersonation or what?

[ahinton]

Woah measure 345; that's unreadable.  Ferneyhough impersonation or what?

Oh, come on, sol! It's pretty obvious that the passage in question is two octaves apart, although I admit that it would have been expressed more clearly as such had the two lines in question been set an octave lower and an 8va sign added thereto. I do know that Brian has a lot of time for certain works of Strauss, but I'm not so sure nevertheless that your analogy quite works here!...

Best,

Alistair

[cz4p32]

Oh, come on, sol! It's pretty obvious that the passage in question is two octaves apart, although I admit that it would have been expressed more clearly as such had the two lines in question been set an octave lower and an 8va sign added thereto. I do know that Brian has a lot of time for certain works of Strauss, but I'm not so sure nevertheless that your analogy quite works here!...

Best,

Alistair

I just copied what Risler wrote.  But you're absolutely right Alistair, it should be expressed differently.

[soliloquy]

Oh, come on, sol! It's pretty obvious that the passage in question is two octaves apart, although I admit that it would have been expressed more clearly as such had the two lines in question been set an octave lower and an 8va sign added thereto. I do know that Brian has a lot of time for certain works of Strauss, but I'm not so sure nevertheless that your analogy quite works here!...

Best,

Alistair

Ferneyhough never uses 8va or even 15va in his piano music.  It's always notes up on top of like... 9 ledger lines.  That's what I was alluding to.

[ahinton]

Ferneyhough never uses 8va or even 15va in his piano music.  It's always notes up on top of like... 9 ledger lines.  That's what I was alluding to.

OK, yes, I see and accept your point now. Michael Finnissy usually does the same, often adding capital letters in brackets above or below certain note heads to indicate what they are when the leger line count is, say, six or more. Personally, I find this to be a rather unhelpful notational convention, especially when it is adopted in music that is already by its very nature quite hard to read in any case; if the note name is not added, it's not easy to tell at a glance what the note is and if it is added, it's just another piece of clutter to the notation. I find similar problems with the question of use of accidentals (and there's no ideal solution to this); Michael alwys places an accidental before each note, which is great to the extent that there can be no doubt as to the pitch of the intended note but a nuisance to the extent that the resultant scores are cluttered with data all of which has to be read and which may therefore run the risk of slowing down the speed at which the whole can be assimilated. I remember years ago Ronald Stevenson saying of the first page of my fourth piano sonata "why have you cluttered it with all those b****y naturals? - a lot of it is in E minor, so all you're doing is making it harder to read!" (he also took another passage from later in that work and said that it needed to be simplified, which he proceeded to do by ADDING some notes - and it worked, too).

Best,

Alistair