Music Detective

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Okay, gang. Here’s a new assignment: we must track down a copy of this unpublished piece and publish it.

http://www.mmb.org.gr/page/default.asp?la=2&id=2044&bib=32335&SintetisD=82&EIDOS=40&YFrom=&YTo=&idd=0&iddP=0

A sight-reading piece for harp by Gabriel Faure from July, 1904. Does anyone know anything about it? Is the only copy in Greece? Or in Paris? Where in the world…

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

And another:

http://www.mmb.org.gr/page/default.asp?la=2&id=2044&bib=45022&SintetisD=117&EIDOS=40&YFrom=&YTo=&idd=0&iddP=0

Prelude and Blues for harp quartet by Artur Honegger.

[diana-lincoln]

On the Greek website under availability the word “no” was written in Greek. It must be in some other catalogue or collection…good luck.

[carl-swanson]

The sight-reading piece must be at the Paris Conservatory. In those days, each year for the final exam in each instrument, there was a brand new piece for each instrument that the students got one month in advance of the exam. But there was also a sight reading piece, usually not very long, that each student had to read at the exam. I’m sure there are a bunch of these in the Paris Conservatory archives.

[MusikFind1]

Halbreich gives the unpublished Prelude et Blues for four Chromatic Harps the number H 56.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I think I saw the Honegger in the rental catalog. The Greek listing suggested that there might be library copies around.

A tip to harpists: there are many more pieces for harp to be found in rental catalogs of publishers. For instance, the Schirmer rental catalog includes the harp with orchestra arrangements of MacDowell’s To a Wild Rose and the Liadow

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

This leads to another question: were all of the harpists in the Casadesus quartet members of that famous musical family? Perhaps that is why the father composed 24 Preludes for viola d’amore and harp.

[barbara-brundage]

>Who wrote the other sight-reading pieces in other years?

It would be interesting to have a complete list. Marilyn Costello published a collection of two of them, by Franck and Delibes, if I remember rightly–too lazy to go digging right now, and I think they’re out of print. Oxford Press, was it?

[barbara-brundage]

I thought the Morceau de concours was the big main piece, and the Morceau à déchiffrer was the sight-reading piece, incidentally. Is that wrong?

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

The Morceau de Concours is a recital piece, that’s right. But the one for flute doesn’t compare to the harp pieces, so it may have been retitled for sale. I would have to get it out and look at the explanation. My recollection is that it is a sight-reading piece. Maybe not.

Oxford University Press did publish the two that Miss Costello found, there should be dealers who still have copies, they are wonderful pieces.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

One of the interesting things I found was looking in old publishers catalogues and finding pieces that had gone out of print, and there is a reprint of an 18th-century Breitkopf & Haertel catalog that has several harp works listed in it. If one were to do a complete bibliography of harp music, one would have to search all those old sources. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone in Germany would unearth all those old pieces.

[barbara-brundage]

I suppose that a fair amount that was in Germany was lost, but I’m sure there’s still a lot of interesting harp music lurking around in the libraries of Europe. I’ve often wished someone would turn up that rumored Concertino by Mendelssohn, for one thing.

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