Servais - Fantaisie La Romantique (Urtext Edition, Piano Version)

Servais’s Fantaisie La Romantique was one of his earliest successes as a composer and remained one of his major concert pieces for almost a decade after its first known performance on 6 December 1834. The work exists in versions for cello with piano accompaniment and with string quintet accompaniment, and it may also have existed in a version with orchestra, as suggested by the phrase “grand orchestre” in the first violin part. The autograph solo cello part is signed “Jan Poumbak,” Servais’s whimsical pseudonym.

Unlike many of Servais’s fantasies, which are based on a single theme or on themes from one opera, Fantaisie La Romantique is closer to a potpourri, bringing together several popular or pre-existing melodies. Its opening cello melody is based on Ferdinand Fürchtegott Huber’s “Ach! wie churze-n-üsi Tage!,” a Swiss song that Servais later reused in his Morceau de Salon No. 3, Op. posth. The work then proceeds through a theme and five variations, including material later incorporated into Souvenir de Bade, Op. 20, and O cara memoria, Op. 17. The later variations move through gypsy-like writing, tremolo accompaniment, brilliant passagework, and a final polonaise, while the closing pages include a quotation of Schubert’s Sehnsuchtswalzer.

The source history of the work is unusually revealing. The original version opened with a dramatic 31-bar introduction, portions of which were later revised, removed, or reused in other works. This edition is based on the autograph solo cello part and a piano part in the hand of Ulysse Claes, Brussels Conservatory Library MS 45.106 (1). The string quintet version, also in the hand of Ulysse Claes, MS 45.107, was also consulted.

ASTA Level: 6