Remenyi's Violin Concerto

[Starrmark]

Eduard (or Ede) Remenyi was the Hungarian violinist who, in 1853, formed a violin/piano duo with the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms, and together they toured widely. In browsing Remenyi's biography on Wikipedia, I came across the following information:

"Reményi made numerous transcriptions of piano pieces such as Chopin's waltzes, polonaises, and mazurkas, and pieces by Bach, Schubert, and others, all of which were published under the title of Nouvelle École du Violon. His best original composition is his Violin Concerto."

Sounds interesting. Someone must have seen the music for his Violin Concerto to make a statement like that.

Does anyone know where a copy of this Violin Concerto may survive. Both the reduction for violin and piano and the partition for violin and orchestra would be important.

Many thanks,
MS

[Starrmark]

Some additional research into Ede Remenyi's life reveals an extraordinary career as a violin soloist, and a composer/arranger of considerable merit. Although Remenyi was not Romani, but rather Jewish, his original compositions were highly influenced by "gypsy" music -- as was his fiery violin playing. His son Tibor compiled this rough list of his father's compositions, below. The most interesting item is that Remenyi composed TWO violin concertos.

Fantasia Les Huguenots
Valse Nobile
Into and Marche Hongroise
Fantasia Barbier de Seville
Hymn of Liberty for chorus and orchestra
Death of Gezirel Hassan
Tragedy
Two Concertos for Violin and Orchestra
Hungarian Hymn
Nouvelle Ecole du Violon
Trois Morceaux Hongrois
Home, Sweet Home (arrangement)
Choral Theme
Misc. arrangements

It is documented that Remenyi frequently performed Joachim's "Hungarian" Violin Concerto. Franz Liszt wrote: "Remenyi, although not a Romany, has become imbued with Bohemian feeling and art. I have never heard him without experiencing an emotion which revived the recollection left by Bihary."

It looks to me like Remenyi's music would be an interesting area for IMSLP to exhume.

MS

[Eric]

Indeed. The only work of those I've seen, I think, is the Hymn of Liberty, which LoC has digitized. Of course and then again, Liszt - e.g. - wasn't Romani either; like Remenyi, he was Hungarian (though - well, see Walker, Liszt: the Weimar Years, discussion of the Gypsy/Hungarian? music debate.)

[jfarrington]

We have none of his scores, just a couple of books about him: Edouard Remenyi, musician, litterateur, and man; an appreciation, with sketches of his life and artistic career, by friends and contemporaries, to which are added critical reviews of his playing and selections from his literary papers and correspondence, by Gwendolyn Dunlevy Kelley and George P. Upton, published in 1906, and Berlioz suivi de Reményi by Barbey d'Aurevilly (1981).

[Eric]

Worldcat only lists 10 entries corresponding to his scores, but I'm guessing there are more in the Szechenyi Library (Budapest)...

Oh, right. Not 10. 30 if one spells his name as Reményi Ede. My bad! And Szechenyi OPAC insists on that spelling, it seems.

[Eric]

Hrm. Ok, Szechenyi maybe doesn't have that many more and it takes some real searching for this non-Hungarian speaker but one that they do have, or list (if like LoC they have listed things they don't actually own...) is Reményi's setting of "Hulladoz a' hársfavirág", published in 1863, "Románcz Thaly Kálmántól".

[jonfrohnen]

I have only the Trois Morceaux Hongrois and I think maybe another arr. or two...I would be very interested to see the concerto but I'm guessing it was never published.

[jonfrohnen]

PS

Both Toskey and Emery state that he wrote 2 Violin Concerto but they're not available.

[JimL]

I just stumbled across this topic after researching Jewish composers. The last entry I saw was from about four years ago. I see that Jon Frohnen stated that the 2 violin concertos are "unavailable", and was wondering if anybody has done any research to see if this is still the case. Does "unavailable" mean that they are lost, or that they are in an archive somewhere that only a select few individuals can access?

[Eric]

btw some of Remenyi's compositions are also mentioned in a book called "Edouard Remenyi: Musician, Litterateur, and Man: an Appreciation" by Gwendolyn Kelley Hack (b.1877) and George Upton (1834-1919), which was published in 1906. (Google Books US has scanned a 2000 reprint and therefore following its usual "logic" only makes a partial preview available- which makes _perfect_ sense... otoh Archive.org has the full text.)

Don't know about the current whereabouts of his violin concerti- the most likely place I'd think of might be to search might be the catalog of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem (which has archives of manuscript music by Friedrich Gernsheim and others as well.)