Popper - Spanish Dances, Op. 54 (Transcribed for Cello and Orchestra, Score)
Popper - Spanish Dances, Op. 54 (Transcribed for Cello and Orchestra, Parts)
Popper - Spanish Dances, Op. 54 (Urtext Edition, Piano Version)
Known primarily for his etudes and a handful of showpieces for the cello, the Bohemian (now Czech) cellist-composer David Popper (1843–1913) enjoyed an illustrious career as a performer, notably championing Volkmann’s Cello Concerto. His works have left a lasting imprint on how cellists approached their craft in the twentieth century and beyond. Popper’s High School of Cello Playing, Op. 73, Tarantella, Op. 33, and Hungarian Rhapsody remain cornerstones of the standard cello repertoire. In recent decades, however, with the advocacy of prominent cellists such as János Starker, Antonio Meneses, and their students, much of Popper’s lesser-known music has begun to reemerge for both performers and audiences.
Popper orchestrated relatively few of his own works, chiefly the five cello concertos, Im Walde, the early Tarantella for violin, Papillon, Gavotte No. 2, Elfentanz, Requiem, and Kaiser-Marsch. By contrast, the popular orchestrations of his first cello Tarantella, Op. 33, and Hungarian Rhapsody were prepared by Paul Gilson and Max Schlegel, respectively. Other orchestrators of his music during Popper’s lifetime included Alexander Glazunov and Jacobus Oushoorn.
This is striking, since Popper’s piano accompaniments often sound highly orchestral, yet his actual orchestral scores are relatively few. There are places where the music suggests a full orchestral tutti while the cello either doubles the piano or accompanies in an orchestral style, textures that can disappear from the solo line without changing the musical meaning. Such passages appear even in Popper’s own orchestral scores, where the solo part and piano reduction sometimes contain material absent from the orchestral cello line, as at the conclusion of “Heimkehr” from Im Walde and elsewhere.
In more recent years, composers and arrangers such as Peter Breiner and Jiří Hošek have orchestrated Popper’s works anew. Breiner’s orchestrations lean toward a contemporary, cinematic sound world, whereas Hošek’s readings feel closer to Popper’s idiom, perhaps reflecting his experience as a cellist. Even so, some of Hošek’s coloristic choices, such as harp and snare drum, can seem out of place.
Popper’s Spanish Dances were issued by D. Rahter in two installments. The first three dances, Zur Guitarre, Sérénade, and Spanischer Carneval, were published in Hamburg in 1883, while the final two appeared in late 1886 or early 1887. A contemporary Hofmeister notice from November 1883 lists all three of the first group under Op. 54.
Unlike the Spanish-themed pieces of Sarasate and other contemporaries, these are entirely Popper’s own melodies rather than arrangements of popular songs. The first two numbers were dedicated to the Russian cellist Alexander Verzhbilovich (1850–1911); although the first page of No. 1 lacks a dedication, it appears on the title page. The two works also bear consecutive plate numbers, 2446 and 2447. Spanischer Carneval, plate 2490, was dedicated to Count Guillermo Morphy (1836–1899), a Spanish aristocrat, music critic, musicologist, and composer. The final two dances, plates 2670 and 2671, were dedicated to the Bohemian-born cellist Heinrich Grünfeld (1855–1931).
An Early Manuscript of the Sérénade
The Sérénade can now be documented considerably earlier in 1883 through an important manuscript preserved in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, Fond 136, item 17, among the papers of Alexander Verzhbilovich.
The source contains the Sérénade for violoncello and piano together with a separate violoncello part. The library describes the musical text cautiously as a copy in the hand of a copyist, while identifying the inscription on the first leaf as autograph writing by Popper. The manuscript title reads Spanische Tänze. No. 2. Sérénade für Violoncello mit Begleitung des Pianoforte, componirt von D. Popper. Unlike the later printed edition, it bears no opus number.
Across the lower part of the title page, Popper added a personal inscription in violet ink:
Meinem lieben guten Alexander zur herzlichen
Erinnerung an seinen ihm treu ergebenen
Freund
St. Petersburg, 6/1 83.
Popper.
A natural English rendering is: “To my dear good Alexander, in heartfelt remembrance, from his faithfully devoted friend.”
The “Alexander” addressed by Popper can be identified with considerable confidence as Verzhbilovich. The manuscript survives among his papers, the inscription addresses its recipient by his first name, and the subsequently published first and second Spanish Dances were dedicated to him. The wording of the inscription also preserves something the conventional printed dedication cannot. Popper calls him “my dear good Alexander” and describes himself as his “faithfully devoted friend.”
The date is particularly significant. Popper signed the manuscript in St. Petersburg on January 6, 1883, while the publication of Nos. 1–3 was not announced in Hofmeister until November. The manuscript is therefore a securely dated pre-publication source for the Sérénade, predating the documented appearance of the printed edition by approximately ten months. The absence of “Op. 54” from its title page may reflect this early stage in the work’s transmission, although it cannot by itself tell us when the opus number was assigned.
The manuscript also sheds light on the preparation of the Sérénade for publication. Fingerings that form part of the copied musical text reappear in the later Rahter edition, while the manuscript preserves additional bowings, articulations, expressive indications, and other details that can be compared with the printed text. A smaller number of markings were added later in pencil and cannot at present be securely attributed.
The recording history is also interesting. The earliest known recording of Zur Guitarre was made by Beatrice Harrison in 1915 with Walter B. Rogers conducting an orchestral version of unknown provenance. That same year, Pablo Casals recorded the Sérénade with pianist Charles A. Baker for Columbia. Among the five Spanish Dances, the Sérénade appears to have attracted the greatest attention on record, followed by Vito, while recordings of Zur Guitarre, Spanischer Carneval, and L’Andalouse remain comparatively rare.
Overview of the Five Dances
No. 1 Zur Guitarre – In the style of a bolero, in rounded binary form.
No. 2 Sérénade – In the style of an Andalusian serenade, in ABA form. Without careful interpretation, this piece can sound too similar to the preceding dance. It is more introverted and serious than Zur Guitarre. According to Stephen Deák, Glazunov orchestrated the Sérénade for Verzhbilovich, although no such score has yet been found in either the Glazunov or Verzhbilovich papers at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. By contrast, Glazunov’s orchestration of Popper’s Sérénade orientale, Op. 18, survives in manuscript and has been published.
No. 3 Spanischer Carneval – In the style of a jota navarra, in rondo form. The most technically demanding piece of the set, it features abundant double stops and harmonics, both natural and artificial. Its form is also the most striking, with each return of the A theme varying in orchestration, texture, and dynamics.
No. 4 L’Andalouse – In the style of a seguidilla, in ABA form. It includes extended piano solos clearly conceived as tutti sections.
No. 5 Vito – In the style of a zapateado, in ABA form. A lively earworm with simple, playful melodies. Popper provided an ossia for the 16th-note run in the retransition section, audible in older recordings. Many modern cellists opt for the more difficult passage in the main text.
About the Editions
Two editions of the Spanish Dances have grown out of this project.
The orchestral edition, prepared first, grew from the strongly orchestral character of Popper’s piano writing. The orchestration aims to remain close to Popper’s own sound world rather than recasting the dances in a modern symphonic style. In the solo cello part, fingerings, bowings, and articulations were combined from the printed cello part and piano score, while obvious errors and inconsistencies were addressed in the Critical Commentary. Artificial harmonic fingerings were largely omitted, since they follow an obvious pattern once the first note is established.
The new edition for violoncello and piano returns to Popper’s original scoring and incorporates the newly examined St. Petersburg sources for the Sérénade. The first Rahter edition remains the principal source for the complete set, while the manuscript score and separate cello part provide an important pre-publication witness for No. 2. In the solo cello part, fingerings, bowings, and articulations have been combined from the surviving sources. The expanded Critical Commentary records errors, variants, manuscript readings, and later penciled annotations, distinguishing them where necessary from markings that belong to the copied musical text.
Together, the two editions approach the Spanish Dances from opposite directions: one explores the orchestral potential already suggested by Popper’s piano writing, while the other returns as closely as possible to the surviving sources for the original version for cello and piano.