“Cheristanens Denkstein” – an unknown piece by Lortzing from his Viennese Period.

Recently I’ve been reading Oskar Pausch’s great book “Die Pokornys – ein Beitrag zur Mitteleuropäischen Theatergeschichte “des 19. Jahrhunderts”.

I bought the book mainly because Lortzing had worked briefly with Franz Pokorny during his Viennese period (1846 – 1848), and I was hoping to find some new sparks of information.
Pausch didn’t let me down, when I opened the book for the very first time at a randomly chosen page, it appeared to be page 105, where a reprint is shown of Lortzing’s manuscript of the beginning of Cheristanens Denkstein, Mus. Hs. 33.747

Obviously it is the stage music for the play “Der Verschwender” by F. Raimund. It is dated 1848 and has an evelope with the following description:

Musik zu dem Mährchen Cheristanens Denkstein von Albert Lortzing. Original-Partitur (unvollendet). Von diesem noch unvollendeten Werke ist keine Abschrift vorhanden. N.B. Der andere Theil diese Werkes befindet sich in der Autografen-Sam[m]lung des Herrn Kappelmeister [!] Adolf Müller

The composition , until 2011 unknown and not mentioned in any catalogue of Lortzing’s works, was found in the Pokorny-Archive, that contains also a score of a “Türkischer Marsch” from 1847 by Lortzing (Mus.Hs. 33.748) and works by other composers. The list of manuscripts in this archive with comments by Günter Brosch is shown here; Lortzing is at number 7:

(Comments are closed)