Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Letter to Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, 23 December 1778
Scope & Content:
Dated Kaisheim, 23 Dec. 1778. Written principally on the recto, with the postscript (Mozart. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, lines 30-32) on the verso. The bottom right corner, with most of the word ‘C[ousin]’ and Mozart’s signature after the letters ‘W: A’, torn away.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Letter to Maria Anna Thekla Mozart
Scope & Content:
Dated Salzburg, 10 May [1779]. The year, at the head of f. 1r, written as’1709’. A drawing of Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, his cousin, head and shoulders in three-quarter profile, occupies part of f. 2r. On f. 2v is the address (only partly in Mozart’s hand), the words ‘Engel’ and ‘Adieu - Adieu -’...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Letter to Anton Klein; Vienna, 21 May 1785
Scope & Content:
Autograph. Dated at the end, on the verso. Annotated in later hands on both recto and verso. In this well-known letter Mozart puts forward his ideas for German opera. Anderson, The Letters of Mozart [3rd edn.], strangely records the original as ‘formerly in the possession of the heirs of Stefan ...
Modest Musorgsky: Songs ‘Svietik Savishna’ (words, the composer) and ‘Iz slez moikh vyroslo mnogo’ (words, translated by M. Mikhaylov from ‘Aus meinem Tränen’ by Heinrich Heine), for voice and piano
Scope & Content:
Autograph score. Written in black ink on systems of three staves. Written out as a pair, with title-page (f. 1r) giving dedications of ‘Svietik Savishna’ to Tsezar Antonovich Kiui, and ‘Iz slez moikh’ to Vladimir Petrovich Opochinin. As follows: ff. 1v-3r. ‘Svietik Savishna’. Vocal line in the...
Friedrich Nietzsche: ‘Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht’ for piano duet
Scope & Content:
1-7 November 1871. Written in dark brown ink on systems of two staves, the two parts on facing pages. Autograph fair copy. Music occupies ff. 2v-13r. Opening tempo direction ‘Langsam’. Title-page (f. 2r): ‘Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht / mit Prozessionslied, Bauerntanz und Mitternachtsglocke / ...
Jacques Offenbach: ‘La belle Hélène’, operetta in three acts (libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy)
Scope & Content:
Autograph full score. Written in ink on systems of 15 to 24 staves. With corrections and additions in ink, some on inserted leaves, and a few pencil annotations also in autograph. Repeated passages are usually not entered in full and are instead indicated by numbered or lettered bars. In some nu...
Jacques Offenbach: Sketches for unidentified works
Scope & Content:
Autograph. Written in ink, with some pencil, mostly on single staves but with some sections in score on up to four staves. In a sketch-book made from leaves or bifolia roughly sewn. Apparently first used, in what is now reverse order, for a sequence of instrumental waltzes, very incompletely ske...
Maurice Ravel: ‘Boléro’, ballet for orchestra, 1928: version for piano duet
Scope & Content:
Autograph score. Written in ink, on systems of five staves (centre stave blank). Headed ‘Bolero’, with tempo direction ‘Tempo di bolero moderato assai [crotchet] = 76’ (f. 1r). The Secondo part is marked ‘Sordina’ at the beginning, and ‘senza sord.’ two bars after cue no. 4 (f. 2v). There are ma...
Autograph. Written in ink, on systems of two staves. Tempo direction ‘Moderato, con moto [quaver]’. Title and ‘composé pour l’Album Bellini par Ant. Rubinstein’ at head of recto. The first 15 bars are numbered by the composer, and the numbers used to indicate a repeat of the passage towards the ...
