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 ...
Contract of marriage between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constanze Weber
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The marriage contract is written in ink in a notary's hand and signed on the reverse by Constanze Weber, her mother Maria Caecilia Weber, her witness Johann Carl Cetto von Kronstorff and her guardian Johann Thorwart, and by Mozart (‘Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’) and his witness Franz Gilowsky. With im...
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 ...
