Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche

In 1895, Richard Strauss wrote Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (‘Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks’) Op. 28, a timelessly popular symphonic poem that is still part of the sophisticated concert repertoire today. The ironic subtitle ‘Composed For Large Orchestra After The Old Roguish Manner - In Rondo Form’, which is puzzling rather than clarifying as to its form, already reveals a new side to the composer which then permeates the music: musical humour.

The source material for Till Eulenspiegel is really abundant: In addition to the sources from the time of its composition, there also exist two late copies of the entire score that Strauss wrote himself in 1944 (‘Dem braven Till zum 50. Geburtstag!’ / To the good Till on his 50th birthday!) and 1945. As valuable collector's items, they were intended to provide material support for his children and grandchildren during the years of war and crisis. This includes a handwritten copy of the score with annotations. These are by no means exact copies of the score, but rather reflect about 50 years of performance experience in numerous, mostly small changes to the musical text.

Our edition takes all sources into account for the first time and provides a musical text in which many well-known uncertain passages have been cleared up and which contains a number of small detail improvements, including previously unknown metronome markings that Strauss communicated to a Belgian conductor by letter. The fact that Strauss rearranged the instrumentation in the final section 50 years after the composition should be of particular interest to musical practitioners. Originally, seven additional horns and trumpets were to be added ad libitum; in the war year of 1944, Strauss omitted them completely and skilfully distributed their notes among other instruments so that the reduction is hardly noticeable and the tonal result improved compared to the original performance option without additional instruments. This attractive variant is included in the volume as an appendix to the traditional ending.