Hummel's Fantasie Op. 94 for Viola and Piano

[rextremendae26]

This is supposedly a very famous piece, and yet I cannot find the sheet music anywhere (aside form sites that want to sell it for $34). Can anyone offer any help here? Thanks!

[kalliwoda]

This problem with copyright is a very common one: The piece was published in 1820 (as "Potpourri" op. 94) for viola and orchestra in a set of parts, and these have been public domain for a long time.
But a piano reduction has only much more recently been published, and the author of a piano reduction has done some original work that is now protected by copyright until long after his death (I found Oubradous (1903-1986) (EMT, 1971), Madden (Musica rara 1973) and Beyer (Kunzelmann 1980) and Gertsch/Zimmermann (Henle 2007).

You can find the original set of parts in the Landesbibliothek Schwerin and a manuscript copy in the Free Library of Philadelphia.
They would most likely send you a scan for less than 30$, but that is just a copy of the old print.

If you don't want to pay that much for the set with piano, you may be best off if you try to locate a copy in a library near you.

[pml]

Obviously an alternative would be to find someone willing to make a new reductio partituræ from the orchestral parts who is prepared to release their work under a Creative Commons licence.

Cheers, Philip

[rextremendae26]

Thank you both very much. I will see what I can find.