My transcription and assembly of three sets of orchestral parts of this waltz by Joseph Lanner.

The waltz dates from late 1837. The autograph has disappeared. I can find no sign of publication beyond Mechetti piano scores for 2 and 4 hands dating from 1838.

There is a more or less complete set of handwritten orchestral parts in the Wien Bibliothek dating from 1838. The quality is very poor. There are many missing or inconsistent phrasing and dynamics, missing bars and copying errors. They really can’t have been played from as some of the errors were shockingly bad.

There is also an incomplete set of parts recorded as having been made for August Lanner’s orchestra in the mid 1850’s in the same library.

There is a later set of parts on the Volksmusik in Baden-Württemberg site with the brass and percussion parts rewritten for a more modern orchestra but the string and woodwind parts were useful as a check. As was the castanet part! (Why does this piece turn all Spanish in the coda?)

I have assembled a score from the three sets of parts. It is always a useful exercise to work through a real Lanner orchestration. I must get better at his woodwind writing. There’s some very odd brass writing in here that he doesn’t seem to repeat later. There’s a duet for his (newish) valve trumpet and trombone. There horn parts are very primitive as usual (because they are played by trumpet players) and are just mid-register unstopped natural horn parts, except that in the coda there is a real melody that would be fearsomely difficult to play on a natural horn.

None of the waltz material is reprised in the coda – it’s all new.