My orchestration of this waltz by Johann Strauss II for which the original score has been lost.

There is a recording of this in another orchestration on the Marco Polo complete edition but I find it very pedestrian. This waltz was written by a young composer for a youthful audience. It must surely be played with some verve. I won’t comment on the other orchestration as there are many ways of approaching this kind of work.

For my part, I think you should do what’s in the score. If there’s something in the score that isn’t working, it’s probably your fault not Strauss’s. Working with piano scores that were cheaply and quickly produced there are usually errors, but I think it is wrong to confuse inconsistency with error. In here there is a theme that occurs in the main body of the waltz where it is implicitly forte but when it reappears in the coda it is marked piano. With most composers it is moderately safe to assume the “p” has been missed by the copyist or printer. It is not safe to do that with Johann Strauss II. Both options work so I have left it as written.

There is one definite error in the score in that there is a section ending with a repeat mark with no corresponding start repeat mark. I have made a reasonable assumption. There is one possible error too. There is a phrase marked piano with a final flourish that is also marked piano. It could be a misread for forte which makes more sense musically. Working with manuscripts of the period it is often difficult to tell f’s from p’s. I have put the forte in. Mea culpa.

When the Marco Polo version came up on the shuffle on the Ipod I always skipped it. Not Strauss’s fault I think. It’s a very good waltz of the period, with the odd flash of what is coming later.