Svendsen, Johan

Divertissement à la Hongroise av Franz Schubert

Divertissement à la Hongroise by Franz Schubert

([fr]: Franz Schubert’s Divertissement à la Hongroise (op. 54) orchestré par Johan S.soprano Svendsen)

Original title: Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Divertissement à la Hongroise D. 818 (op. 54) (1824) (For piano 4 hands)

JSV 41

Johan Svendsen was living in Paris when on 26 October 1869 he put the final touches to his orchestration of Franz Schubert’s (1797–1828) Divertissement à la Hongroise, D. 818.
Svendsen’s Schubert arrangement is scored for large orchestra, including three percussionists in addition to timpani. In the summer of 1866, while studying in Leipzig, he had arranged two other piano works for large orchestra: Faschingsschwank aus Wien by Robert Schumann, JSV 36, and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt, JSV 37.
Liszt, too, arranged Schubert’s divertissement, for piano solo, using the title Mélodies hongroises, S425. Some years later, Svendsen orchestrated another piano piece by Schubert, ‘Andante sostenuto’ from the Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-flat major, D-960. That orchestration was completed in Donndorf near Bayreuth on 31 May 1872.
Schubert began work on his Divertissement à la Hongroise for piano four-hands in the summer of 1824 while serving as a music teacher for the daughters of Count János Károly Esterházy de Galántha (1775–1834) at the count’s home in Zselíz, a city located a few miles east of Bratislava in present-day  Slovakia. The work was completed in Vienna and published in 1826 as Op. 54 by Artaria, but Svendsen may well have used a later edition by Diabelli (Vienna, 1833) as the basis for his orchestration. According to his friend, the Hungarian singer Baron Carl Freiherr von Schönstein (1796–1876), Schubert jotted down a Hungarian melody he heard being sung by a young woman working in the count’s kitchen. He then incorporated the melody into the finale of his divertissement. It is the same melody he used for his Ungarische Melodie in B minor, D. 817.

Composition: 23 Oct. 1869.

Paris

Extent: ca. 23 min.

Sources

A: Score, autograph

[Classification: notated music, manuscript, autograph, score, fair copy]

78 pages; 27,8x36 cm.

Title page 1: On the second cover page: Paris d: 18/12 -69. / JSvendsen

Title page 2: Franz Schubert’s / Divertissement à la Hongroise (op. 54). / orchestré / par / Johan S.> Svendsen / Paris 1869.

Hand ruled music paper, 16 staves
Pagination: 1–78
At the end of the score: Paris le 26 Octobre / 1869 / JSvendsen

Brown hardbound cover

Written in ink (Johan Svendsen).

N-Onm (National Library of Norway, Oslo, Norway) Mus.ms. 7887. Facsimile

B: Printed edition of Schubert's original

[Classification: notated music, print, score, first edition]

Artaria Verlag,, Wien 1826.

Title page: DIVERTISSEMENT À LA HONGROISE / pour le / Pianoforte / à quatre mains / composé et dedié / À / MADAME de LACSNY / NÉE BUCHWIESER / par / François Schubert. / Oeuvre 54.