Mozart's Haffner and Linz Symphonies Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello, and: Twelve Select Overtures Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello (review)

Abstract

Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Mozart's and Symphonies Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello. Edited by Mark Kroll. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 29.) Madison, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2000. [Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xvi; 2 plates; scores, 114 p.; crit. report, p. 115-17. ISBN 0-89579-466-7. $55; parts (fl., vln., vc.), $27.] Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Twelve Select Overtures Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello. Edited by Mark Kroll. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 35.) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2003. [Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xii; 2 plates; scores, 285 p.; crit. report, p. 287-89. ISBN 0-89579-519-1. $160; parts (fl., vln., vc.), $54.] Contains overtures to Prometheus (Beethoven), Die Zauberflote (Mozart), Lodoiska (Cherubini), Figaro (Mozart), Iphigenia [en Aulide] (Gluck), Sargino (Ferdinando Paer), Der Freischutz (Weber), Euryanthe (Weber), Tancredi (Rossini), and Anacreon (Cherubini), plus Original Overture (Friedrich Heinrich Himmel) and [Original] Overture (Andreas Jakob Romberg). On the face of it, a critical edition of an version of a musical work, and of an arrangement no less, would seem to be a misdirection of scholarly effort, particularly when the work in question is very familiar and readily available, both in print and in recorded performances, in its authentic form. But there are many valid reasons for taking such arrangements and inauthentic editions seriously, and we can therefore extend a warm welcome to these two volumes edited by Mark Kroll in Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries that present Johann Nepomuk Hummel's arrangements of two Mozart symphonies (from Mozart's Six Grand Symphonies [London: Chappell & Co., 1823-24]) and a dozen overtures by various composers that comprised his first set of Twelve Select Overtures (London: Boosey, 1821). As Kroll details in his valuable introduction to the Mozart volume (see table 1, pp. xi-xii), Hummel produced a substantial catalog of such arrangements in the 1820s and 1830s. In addition to the works at hand, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Haffner and Linz Symphonies, K. 385 and 425, these include another dozen overtures, Ludwig van Beethoven's Septet, Fidelia (for piano four-hands), and his first seven symphonies, four symphonies by Joseph Haydn (nos. 44, 100, 102, and 103), a symphony by Andreas Jakob Romberg, and the balance of Mozart's last six symphonies and seven of his piano concertos. This last group is especially notable for Hummel's original cadenzas and for his lavish embellishments to both slow and fast movements, designed to exploit the expanded range of the nineteenth-century piano. Until recently, Hummel's cadenzas could still be heard from time to time. The old Schirmer two-piano edition of the DMinor Concerto, K. 466, edited by Franz Kullak (Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics, 661 [1901, 1929; reprint, 2002]), printed Hummel's cadenzas in the body of the score while relegating Beethoven's to an appendix. Even Glenn Gould, who was quite capable of fashioning brilliant cadenzas of his own, as we know from his incomparable recording of Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, chose Hummel's firstmovement cadenza when he recorded Mozart's C-Minor Concerto, K. 491 (Beethoven: Columbia Symphony Orchestra/ Vladimir Golschmann, (Columbia MS 6017 [1958], LP, with various reissues including Beethoven, The 5 Piano Concertos, Sony Classical SM3K 52632 [1992], CD); Mozart: CBC Symphony/Walter Susskind, Columbia MS 6339 [1962], LP, in various reissues including Sony Classical SMK 52626 [1992], CD). And should some venturesome pianists feel the urge to go it alone in Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365, they should be aware that Hummel's arrangement awaits their perusal. The titles of Hummel's arrangements, as given on the title pages of the new editions -arranged for pianoforte, flute, violin, and violoncello-do not fully represent these versions, as they might more accurately be designated for piano solo or piano with the accompaniment of flute, violin, and cello. …