Strauss, Richard

"Herrn Dr Hans von Bülow in tiefster Verehrung und Dankbarkeit zugeeignet 16 [altered from "14"] Improvisationen und Fuge über ein Originalthema für Pianoforte zu 2 Haenden componirt von Richard Strauss op. 15 [altered from "13"]

notated in brown ink on up to twelve staves per page, with an additional section (titled "7. u. 8. Improvisation") added on a separate leaf, the subsequent Improvisations renumbered, with some extensive deletions, including 20 bars in the Fugue, alterations, corrections and annotations, some fingering added in pencil



17 pages, folio (c.35 x 26cm), including autograph title, 12-stave paper (B. & H. Nr. 4C)  contemporary cloth-backed boards, no place or date, [16 May 1884], edges trimmed by the binder affecting titles on two pages, some browning and staining, mainly to the margins, binding weak with the first page loose

Trenner 130 (p.95); Mueller von Asow WoO 81; Richard Strauss Quellenverzeichnis w0181 (for this manuscript: RSQV ID  q12248, location unknown)

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Partly unpublished. This is an important source for Strauss's early music, undescribed in the literature on the composer.  The work is otherwise known only from a copyist's manuscript, which bears the date 16 May 1884 (see Trenner, p.95).  Strauss adds to the work in his autograph manuscript, although the inserted '7. u. 8. Improvisation', in fact comprises a single continuous section in 2/4-6/8, as its singular title indeed implies.  Both Trenner and the Richard Strauss Institute's Quellenverzeichnis refer to this work as having only fourteen Improvisations, presumably following the scribal manuscript.  Only the six-page Fugue, closing this work, was published in Strauss's lifetime, as a Beilage to Oscar Bie's Das Klavier und seine Meister (1898).  This is a virtuoso piano work by the twenty-year old composer, essentially a set of variations and fugue on an original theme.  The sixteen-bar 'Thema', follows a short but rather "orchestral" introduction. 

It is evidently a working manuscript and contains evidence of Strauss making important structural alterations once the work was substantially complete. The finished work was first performed by Strauss himself in Frankfurt on 10 June 1885. The dedicatee was Hans von Bülow, who did much to further Strauss's early career. Bülow commissioned the Suite in B flat for performance at Meiningen and in 1885 offered the assistant conductorship of the Meiningen orchestra to the young composer. Within weeks Bülow resigned and Strauss was made chief conductor, still only twenty. Interestingly, Brahms visited Meiningen in the autumn of 1885 for the premiere of his Fourth Symphony. Strauss played some of his works for Brahms, who was apparently impressed, but (as usual) offered some criticism. It is possible that Strauss may have played the Improvisations and Fugue to Brahms. In style, the work is not uninfluenced by Brahms, particularly in the rich textures and in the use of fugue, recalling Brahms's own "Handel Variations".