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...
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...
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 ...
Alessandro Scarlatti: Cantata, ‘Ombre tacite e sole’, for soprano solo, two violins, viola and basso continuo
Scope & Content:
Autograph full score. Written in ink, on systems of four and five staves. The bass is figured throughout. Signed ‘Cav[alier]e Aless[andr]o Scarlatti’ at top left, and headed ‘Cantata p[er] / Camera / Sopr[an]o Solo / con Strom[en]ti d’Arco. / 31 8bre 1716’ at left of first system (f. 1r). The wo...
Franz Schubert: ‘Misero pargoletto’ (text Pietro Metastasio, from Demofoonte), aria in B flat for high voice and keyboard accompaniment (D 42)
Scope & Content:
Autograph. Partly score, partly vocal line only. Written in ink, on single staves and on systems of two and three staves. With corrections in ink and pencil, some apparently in the hand of Antonio Salieri, with whom Schubert studied. In two versions; one of them, less fully realised, but setting...
Franz Schubert: Four German Dances for piano (D 146 no.2, 769 no. 1, and 783 Deutsche nos. 1, 2)
Scope & Content:
Autograph. Written in brown ink on systems of two staves. On a single leaf, the dances from D 146 and 769 on the recto, the others on the verso. D 769 no. 1 marked ‘Mit Verschiebung’. Headed ‘Deutsch’, dated 1824, and signed ‘Fr. Schubert M[anu propr]ia’, all at head of recto; signature in light...
Franz Schubert: Dance (‘Deutscher’) in A flat for piano (D 365, no. 2), with the beginning of Evangelium Johannis 6 (D 607)
Scope & Content:
Autograph. Written on recto and verso of a single leaf, as follows: f. 1r. Evangelium Johannis 6, vers. 55-58 (text in German from St. John’s Gospel in Luther’s translation), for voice with figured bass accompaniment; [1818]. Bars 1-33 only. Written in ink, on systems of two staves. Headed ‘Evan...
Franz Schubert: Folder in which Zweig MS 81A (Schubert’s autograph of ‘An die Musik’) was mounted before its presentation to the British Library
Scope & Content:
As follows: f. 1. Portrait of Schubert, lithograph by Josef Teltscher, 1826, published by Mansfeld & Co.; [1829]. The first of the two versions issued by Mansfeld & Co., with below the image a reproduction of Schubert’s signature and the words ‘Ehrenmitglied der Musik-Vereine zu Grätz un...
Franz Schubert: ‘Mirjams Siegesgesang’ (words Franz Grillparzer), for soprano solo, choir and piano (D 942)
Scope & Content:
Autograph full score. Written in dark brown ink; mostly on systems of 6 staves: soloist and chorus sopranos parts on the same stave and marked ‘solo’ or ‘tutti’, systems of 3 staves for passages for soprano solo and piano only. Tempo directions ‘All[egr]o giusto (f. 2r) - Allegretto (f. 4r) - Al...
Heinrich Schütz: [‘Schwanengesang’], setting in German of Psalm 119, with Psalm 100 and the German Magnificat (SWV 482-494), for two four-part choirs with organ continuo: organ continuo part
Scope & Content:
Copy, with autograph annotations. Figured bass line, written in dark brown ink on single staves, with key words and phrases of the text written in beneath, and indicating the sections allocated to each of the two choirs. In a volume labelled ‘ORGANUM’ (f. i) on the upper cover. The music is in a...
