My orchestration of this galoppe by Philipp Fahrbach I, written to celebrate the opening of the first Austrian railway, the Kaiser Ferdinand Nordbahn, in Vienna in 1837.

It has been recorded before, presumably in the original orchestration or something close to it, for Marco Polo. That recording is on youtube. It was the first piece of Fahrbach I had ever heard and it almost put me off Fahrbach forever! The arrival of the railway in Vienna was a very exciting event. The sight of one of those fire breathing monsters tearing down the tracks at speed in excess of 30 kph must have been thrilling. Fahrbach attempts to capture that in perhaps the first of many 19th century railway galoppes. That recording doesn’t. Just dull.

I’ve had a go. Quicker and a bit more élan hopefully – this is just a machine after all.

The work was not helped by a publisher who deemed it acceptable not to bother with dynamic markings throughout most of the piece.