Unknown Transcription of the “March to the Grand Guard Parade” WoO 24

This march originally appeared in the Gesamtausgabe (Series 2, No. 15) and is catalogued in the Kinsky/Halm catalogue on p. 462 as WoO 24, described as a march in D major for military band.

The former Preußische Staatsbibliothek owns a transcription for the following instrumentation (listed top to bottom):

• 1st and 2nd violins
• Violas
• 2 oboes
• 1 piccolo
• 2 flutes
• 2 clarinets in C
• 2 bassoons
• 2 horns in D
• 2 low-pitched horns in B-flat
• 4 trumpets in D
• Timpani
• 3 trombones
• Triangle
• Cymbals
• Bass drum
• Cellos and double basses

? The transcription’s origin is unclear. The first page bears the note “Artaria 223” in parentheses, and various inventory markings have been added later in pencil: “Mus. ms. 1261” (or 1201) on the left, and “Mus. ms. 1901. 406” at the center. These annotations were not made by the copyist, whose only title reads “March by Beethoven.”

If Beethoven was not responsible for this orchestration, then who arranged it? The answer to Hess’s question may lie in research by Clemens Brenneis. In his essay “An Orchestral Version of Beethoven’s ‘Marsch zur grossen Wachtparade,’” published in Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: Studies in the Music of the Classical Period – Essays in Honour of Alan Tyson, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998 (from p. 213), Brenneis proposes that the march was orchestrated by Baron Eduard von Lannoy for a special charity concert held in Vienna on 18 April 1844