My orchestration from the Blaha piano score of this potpourri by Karel Komzak II. I found it in a charity bookshop. It cost me 25p.

I have a weakness for these potpourris. This one is a bit strange. Normally they consist of light music with the occasional bit of popular opera thrown in. This one doesn’t. There are some very strange bedfellows in here. I imagine Wagner’s eyebrows would have been raised at a bit of Rheingold rubbing shoulders with what I think is a song in praise of a Hungarian pudding.

In some places Komzak has his tongue firmly in his cheek but there is some very serious music here, treated seriously.

I did learn something though. When I played horn (quite badly) in amateur orchestras I used to dread Schumann turning up on the program. He had absolutely no idea how to write for horn. I would sit there thinking “What on earth made you write rubbish like this?”. As I was orchestrating the bit of Kinderszenen in here I found myself writing exactly the same kind of rubbish. He wrote for piano and then just copied out the internal piano voices for horn.

Here is a list of the main contents. Komzak doesn’t document some of his little jokes.

0:00 – Wagner – Das Rheingold
0:39 – Schumann – Ich grolle nicht
1:47 – Komzak – Phantome – Walzer
2:19 – “Pagliaci Motiv”
2:40 – Patzke – Der Kaiser kommt – Marsch
3:15 – Gounod – Tribut von Zamora
3:31 – Gounod – Faust (four notes !)
3:47 – Wagner – Das Rheingold
4:01 – Krampampuli
4:49 – Schumann – Träumerei
6:50 – Mascagni – Cavalleria Rusticani und Carneval von Venedig
7:42 – Schrammel’s letztes Lied
8:42 – Halevy – Die Judin
9:01 – Schumann – O Sonnenschein
9:48 – Komzak – Petite Valse
10:21 – Mascagni – Freund Fritz
11:30 – Weihelied
12:33 – Bellini – La Somnambula
13:04 – Johann Strauss I – Loreley-Rheinklänge – Walzer
13:23 – Offenbach – Schöne Helena
13:56 – Ungarisches Lied
15:15 – Lanner - S’Hoamweh – Landler
15:39 – Koschat – Mei Zartele
16:05 – Komzak – Technikerblut – Polka
16:43 – Handel – Largo
17:52 – Mascagni - Intermezzo
18:46 – Kriebaum – Das waas nur a Weaner
19:21 – “O Dirndle tief drunt im Thal”
19:47 - Fassone - Margarethe