- #1
Jonathan Scott
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I've just been playing in a mainly baroque orchestral concert (playing continuo on a digital harpsichord) but we also included a Boccherini cello concerto in D major, played by an excellent local cellist. The weird thing was that the string parts we were given did not appear to match any of Boccherini's cello concerti. However, we eventually spotted that what we had was Concerto no 6, G.479, but with orchestral parts totally unrelated to Boccherini's version!
From a bit of detective work, it seems that Georges Papin, the principal cellist of a French orchestra, came across the solo part of the Boccherini concerti and wrote a piano accompaniment for it (apparently with any reference whatsoever to the original concerto) so that he could perform it. His arrangement was published in 1897. Another composer, Michel Brusselmans, then apparently came across that cello and piano version and orchestrated it again, splitting out the piano part across a small string orchestra, and published that in 1922.
I don't know whether the original edition had been lost or mislaid temporarily, but it is now available again (on IMSLP as a very old edition and as a modern typeset version). As far as I can tell, there is literally nothing in common between the original and the version that we played apart from a large amount of the solo part (and even that wasn't totally identical, as the arranger had borrowed some measures from another Boccherini concerto to fill in a gap)!
As I was playing harpsichord for this concert, I was looking forward to the Boccherini as a chance for a break. However, during rehearsal, it was rapidly discovered that it needed a conductor (unlike the baroque works), especially for entries after cadenzas and similar, so I didn't get a break after all, and had to rapidly work out how to conduct some very awkward stuff that I'd never heard of before. Fortunately, the soloist played very impressively providing an excellent distraction from my somewhat nervous flailing, and it all hung together very well.
[Edited to correct typo]
From a bit of detective work, it seems that Georges Papin, the principal cellist of a French orchestra, came across the solo part of the Boccherini concerti and wrote a piano accompaniment for it (apparently with any reference whatsoever to the original concerto) so that he could perform it. His arrangement was published in 1897. Another composer, Michel Brusselmans, then apparently came across that cello and piano version and orchestrated it again, splitting out the piano part across a small string orchestra, and published that in 1922.
I don't know whether the original edition had been lost or mislaid temporarily, but it is now available again (on IMSLP as a very old edition and as a modern typeset version). As far as I can tell, there is literally nothing in common between the original and the version that we played apart from a large amount of the solo part (and even that wasn't totally identical, as the arranger had borrowed some measures from another Boccherini concerto to fill in a gap)!
As I was playing harpsichord for this concert, I was looking forward to the Boccherini as a chance for a break. However, during rehearsal, it was rapidly discovered that it needed a conductor (unlike the baroque works), especially for entries after cadenzas and similar, so I didn't get a break after all, and had to rapidly work out how to conduct some very awkward stuff that I'd never heard of before. Fortunately, the soloist played very impressively providing an excellent distraction from my somewhat nervous flailing, and it all hung together very well.
[Edited to correct typo]
