"Yet the Rainbow Waltz that is credited to Price on Sony's album of the concert isn't actually a piece by Price. Wolfgang Dorner's supposed arrangement of Price's original music for solo piano has been called by the Price expert John Michael Cooper who has edited and published more of Price's work than any other musicologist the sincerest form of insult to Price and her music, labelling the work a forgery."
"To my ears, the melodies, harmonies and even the structure of Dorner's piece bear little relationship to Price's waltz for solo piano. It is not only that the piece that was played has no meaningful relationship to the original, it's that any trace of Price's unique harmonies, which connect the worlds of spirituals, the influence of early blues and jazz, with classical traditions, has been ironed out."
"What you are left with is pure Viennese pastiche. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra perform music including Florence Price's Rainbow Waltz on 1 January 2026 in the world famous Musikverein concert hall."
Conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin programmed Florence Price's music at the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day Concert in 2026, marking a departure from the traditional Strauss-dominated repertoire. However, the piece credited as Price's Rainbow Waltz is actually Wolfgang Dorner's heavily rearranged orchestration that bears little resemblance to Price's original solo piano composition. Music expert John Michael Cooper condemns the work as a forgery, noting that Dorner's version eliminates Price's unique harmonic language—her distinctive blend of spirituals, blues, jazz, and classical traditions—replacing it with conventional Viennese style. The orchestration adds new material while retaining almost no recognizable themes from Price's original work.
#florence-price #musical-forgery #orchestration-controversy #vienna-philharmonic #classical-music-authenticity
Read at www.theguardian.com
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