I was doing an end of year tidy up when I noticed this piece had been in my “in progress” file for nearly two years. I was sent the score for piano, four hands by the Johann Strauss Society of Great Britain and orchestrated a bit of it and gave up. Three reasons – I wasn’t that impressed with it (I thought it was a bit dull); it was originally written for strings; I don’t know much Gung’l and nothing at all of this date so it is all a bit of guesswork.

So, Gung’l wrote it for strings, somebody (perhaps Gung’l) transcribed it for piano, 4 hands and I have done an arrangement for small-ish orchestra. How much Gung’l is left is moot.

Usually when I start with a piano score it is of music that was originally conceived for orchestra so when I do a bit of reverse engineering the music usually fits the orchestra. The composer has done that work for me. Normally, I look at a piano score and know what I want to do with it. I may not get it right but it works, more often than not.

This was a bit of a struggle. I hope it doesn’t show too much. It’s a perfectly decent piece of late 19th century salon music.