Comedy Overture

Full title	Comedy Overture for orchestra op. 32 / Komödien-Vorspiel für mittleres Orchester op. 32
Date composed	1933
Details	Composition completed 11 December 1933. Originally titled and published as Komödienouvertüre. Orchestration: 2(2nd alt. Picc.), 2, 2, (B-flat & A), 2/4, 2, 0, 0/Timp. Perc./Str. Performance duration: ca. 10 min.
Manuscript sources	NYPL JOB 72-159, holograph full score (53 numbered pages), with composer's note at end: Wien, am 11./XII. 1933. See also NYPL JPB 99-7 no. 86, copyist's manuscript score (55 pages); NYPL JPB 99-7 no. 87, manuscript score of four-hand piano reduction by Peter Paul Fuchs (49 pages), with Fuchs's note on title page: Wien, 17. Juli 1934; NYPL JOG 99-5, published U.E. score; and LOCMA box-folder 62/2, composer's sketches (14 pages), dated 31 October 1933.
Publication details	Universal Edition, 1935: U.E. 10.263, full score (a misprint on some of printings gives the designation op. 31); and piano reduction, arr. Peter Paul Fuchs.
Availabiity	Full score, parts, and piano reduction available from UE/EAM and FCP; full score available from KWF.
Recordings
Listen	Comedy Overture Baton Rouge Orchestra, cond. Peter Paul Fuchs

Performances (click icon to expand or collapse list)

25 February 1935	Vienna, RAVAG radio performance and broadcast: unidentified orchestra, cond. Karl Auderieth.
15 November 1936	Vienna: Wiener Konzertorchester, cond. Hans Gál.
21 October 1946	Rochester, New York, Eastman School of Music, Seventieth American Composers Concert: Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, cond. Howard Hanson.
February 1951	Vienna, Weigl Gedenkfeier: Wiener Symphoniker, cond. Felix Prohaska. Also on program: Brahms, Symphony No. 2.
17 February 1971	Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, cond. Peter Paul Fuchs.
4 October 1981	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh State University, McCray Recital Hall: Southeast Kansas Symphony, cond. Carolann Martin. Also on program: works by Prokofieff; Brahms
2 December 1989	Chicago, University of Chicago, Mandel Hall, Viennese Crosscurrents, Karl Weigl, Neo- Romanticism, and the Modernist Movement, concert 3: Comedy Overture op. 32 and movement 2, Pro defunctis, from Symphony No. 2 (University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cond. Barbara Schubert; Two Religious Choruses (University of Chicago Chorus, cond. Michael Melton). Also on program: Reger, Trost; Mahler, Kindertotenlieder; Bruckner, Te Deum.