IMSLP Forums

IMSLP has posted tons of waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, etc. by members of the Strauss family. They are all listed as composed for orchestra. But, almost invariably, IMSLP has only the piano reductions. Where are all the orchestral scores and parts? Lucks Music rents parts to many orchestral works by members of the Strauss family -- but a large number of these pieces either have no orchestral score or they provide only sketchy piano/conductor parts. I would think that all this music would be PD by now, perhaps including the "critical editions" published by Doblinger and others more than 30 years ago. Were the orchestral scores published when the Strauss family was alive and active?

MS

The plot thickens.

Where are all the orchestral scores (and parts) for the innumerable waltzes, marches, polkas, quadrilles, etc. by members of the Strauss family? I came across the following in the article on Johann Strauss II on Wikipedia:

"Most of the Strauss works that are performed today may once have existed in a slightly different form, as Eduard Strauss destroyed much of the original Strauss orchestral archives in a furnace factory in Vienna's Mariahilf district in 1907. Eduard, then the only surviving brother of the three, took this drastic precaution after agreeing to a pact between himself and brother Josef that whoever outlived the other was to destroy their works. The measure was intended to prevent the Strauss family's works from being claimed by another composer. This may also have been fueled by Strauss's rivalry with another of Vienna's popular waltz and march composers, Karl Michael Ziehrer."

Did Eduard burn the only examples of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of orchestral scores by the Strauss family? Are the piano reductions on IMSLP the only surviving relic of these orchestral works? Did Austria have a legal deposit of published works back then, like many other European countries. If so, do copies of the orchestral versions still survive today in the archives of the Austrian National Library? Since the original versions of the Strausses' works represent a significant part of Austria's musical heritage, this is not a trivial question.

If most or all of the orchestral scores and parts perished in Eduard's furnace, then what orchestral versions does the Vienna Philharmonic use today on New Year's Day Concerts (and many other celebratory concerts.) Their archives of works by the Strausses appears to be inexhaustible. Do they play orchestrations by non-Strauss orchestrators, arranged for full symphony orchestra from the piano reductions. Has the Vienna Philharmonic commissioned its own library of Johann Strauss orchestrations, not available to other orchestras? And what about the Vienna Strauss Orchestra and Andre Rieu's Johann Strauss Orchestra? Do they play orchestrations by modern, uncredited arrangers.

Most of the piano reductions of Strauss family works on IMSLP are rather threadbare and simple, not at all on the level of sophistication and virtuosity audible in the orchestral pieces performed by the Vienna Philharmonic. It would be quite a feat to reverse-engineer orchestral arrangements for full symphony orchestra from these unsophisticated piano reductions.

MS

The Wienbibliothek im Rathaus appears to have a large collection of Strauss family manuscripts. Many of them, as well as their Schubert autograph manuscript collection, are online here: Musikhandschriften.

Many thanks to Cypressdome. What an incredible resource you have uncovered! The digitized musical manuscripts of the Wienbibliothek. Here is a triple treasure trove -- literally hundreds and hundreds of significant works in manuscript, not only by all the members of the Strauss family, but also by Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf. And they are all downloadable as PDFs! I was completely unaware of this online archive. I never expected to find anything of such importance when I started inquiring about the Strausses' orchestral scores.

I would think here is a prime resource for IMSLP. The hundreds of PDFs could be downloaded from the Wienbibliothek and then uploaded and collated with the corresponding works on IMSLP. This would be an immense task; but given the importance of this music, surely it would be worth the effort, spread over time and undertaken by many hands..

MS

I have just joined this this forum and spotted the discussion of the Strauss scores/autograph MSS. This journal article, available on JSTOR, may be of interest:
Aigner, Thomas. “THE VIENNA CITY LIBRARY’S JOHANN STRAUSS II COLLECTION.” Fontes Artis Musicae, vol. 51, no. 3/4, 2004, pp. 351–57. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23510400.

With few exceptions, there were no published/printed full orchestra scores around for dances and marches back in the 19th and early 20th century. Publishers would print sets of parts, and that would be it. While few of the original orchestra scores by the Strauss family survive - quite a few of the surviving copies are more like 'working papers' rather than a clean 'engraver's master'.

The conductor had to use the 1st Violin-part, or, in later years, a special 'Piano Conductor' part, which sometimes would be published.
Using a regular piano-score can come with various problems - sometimes it would be in different keys than the orchestra-version, and it could also be notated in different ways, and even abbreviated.
These days, few conductors will accept conducting from a violin part - and are thus forced to either use a piano-score (with the shortcomings mentioned) or have the complete music typeset. Alternatively, libraries can be searched for preserved manuscript full orchestra scores, but again, what is preserved in that respect is very sketchy.