My orchestration of the Mechetti piano score of this waltz by Joseph Lanner.

It has been in my pile for some years but I have been putting off doing it as I haven’t had the opportunity to study any Lanner full scores of this period (1832). It is very different in style from Lanner’s later waltzes, from about 1835 onwards, where I can do a bit less guesswork. In fact, if this waltz had turned up with Strauss, Fahrbach or Morelly’s name on the title page I’d have accepted it without a murmur. It is a very good waltz but there aren’t many recognisable Lanner fingerprints in it beyond what might appear in any of those composers’ works. What Lannerisms there are might well be mine!

It feels like an end of an era piece. The strings are still three violins and bass, no cello or viola parts, and I have had the joy of scoring for natural trumpets in B (H) and A basso and persuading Dorico to do that too.

I’m assuming the Sophie referred to is Empress Sophie but the score has no dedication. The picture is of Empres Sophie in 1832, the year the waltz was published.