Beschreibung:

Richard Strauss
Autograph sketchleaf for the "Panathenäenzug" for piano (left hand) and orchestra, op.74
comprising a passage of sixty-two bars, being four varied versions of the Passacaglia theme in long notes, notated in blue ink, on four systems, each of three staves, some extended into the margin, signed, inscribed and dated by the composer ("Hierzu Passagen in allen Taktarten! Für Paul Wittgenstein DrRichard Strauss. Prag. 23. 3.[19]26")
1 page, large oblong folio (25.5 x 31.5cm), 12-stave paper, Prague 1926, slight splitting to central vertical fold, browned
Possibly the first sketch for the second work for piano left hand commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein. It contains the Passacaglia theme in 2/4 time, but not as in the final version, where the bass notes are in crotchets (here they are in minims). It contains the skeleton of the opening of the work, but with new material.
The grandly-titled Panathenäenzug--Sinfonische Etüden in Form einer Passacaglia für Klavier (linker Hand) und Orchester, op.74 was composed in 1926-1927 and given its premiere under Franz Schalk in 1928, with Wittgenstein as soloist. The Panathenaea was the great annual festival of ancient Athens, held every four years, which culminated in a grand procession. The late, great Strauss scholar Norman Del Mar describes it as "a curious, even perplexing work. In its proportions, its duration of nearly the half hour, its fantastic demands on the one-armed soloist who, as in the Parergon, rarely has a single bar's respite from his Herculean labours, it should rate as a major accomplishment in any composer's output".
LITERATURE:Norman Del Mar, Richard Strauss, ii (1969), p.294
PROVENANCE:From the Music Archive and Library of Paul Wittgenstein