Servais - Fantaisie et Variations brillantes sur la Valse de Schubert intitulée le Désir, Op. 4 (Urtext Edition, Piano Version)

Servais’s Fantaisie et variations brillantes sur la Valse de Schubert intitulée Le Désir began as Hommage à Beethoven, reflecting a nineteenth-century misattribution of the work’s theme. The waltz was correctly published under Franz Schubert’s name by Diabelli around 1822 as Trauer oder Sehnsuchts-Walzer, but another publisher later attributed it to Beethoven, after which the melody circulated widely under Beethoven’s name. Carl Czerny’s earlier variations on the same theme appeared simply as Variationen über einen beliebten Wiener-Walzer, while Friedrich Kummer still identified it as a Beethoven theme in 1835. By 1844, Servais had retitled his own work as a fantasy on a theme by Schubert, while retaining Le Désir as the subtitle.

The work is a brilliant variation fantasy in Servais’s characteristic concert style, transforming the familiar waltz through lyrical writing, virtuoso display, and dramatic formal expansion. Its source history gives the piece particular interest, connecting Schubert reception, Beethoven misattribution, and the nineteenth-century virtuoso variation tradition.

The main sources for this edition were Servais’s autograph manuscripts of the piano version and the string quintet version, held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek under the shelfmarks Mus.Schott.Ha 7960-2 for the piano version and Mus.Schott.Ha 7961-2 for the quintet version. We also consulted the Schott first editions of both versions, published in Mainz by Schott in 1844 (plate 7741), as well as an early manuscript housed at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels under the shelfmark MS 45.106 (2). For the piano version, the most compelling variants from the orchestral version have been incorporated and noted in the footnotes. For the string quintet version, Servais’s woodwind cues have been incorporated into the main text of the string parts. Any deviations from the sources are marked editorially or discussed in the footnotes. The sources were graciously provided by the Servais Society.

ASTA Level: 6