William Byrd (b. circa 1540, d.1623): ‘My Ladye Nevells Booke’, a collection of music for keyboard; 1591. In the hand of John Baldwin, with small, possibly autograph, corrections. Written in ink throughout, on six-line staves, in a calligraphic hand. The manuscript contains 42 numbered pieces fo...
Claudio Monteverdi: letter to the Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio
Scope & Content:
Autograph. The letter, written from Venice, concerns aspects of the music for the festivities at the marriage of the Duke Odoardo Farnese to Margherita, second daughter of Cosimo II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in Parma the following year. Bentivoglio had commissioned Monteverdi to write t...
Threlfall, VII/4. 'The compositional history of this work is probably the most tortuous of any in the Delius canon' (Threlfall 1990, p. 189). Publication: 1907 [dated 1897], lithographed full score, Harmonie-Verlag; 1951, full score ed. Beecham, Boosey & Hawkes (8864); 1990, rev. ed., ed Bee...
Frederick Delius: Fantasy for Orchestra and Pianoforte
Scope & Content:
Threlfall, VII/4. Lowe comments (Catalogue, p. 55): 'Both in its material and in the cyclic repetition of the first section, this one movement fantasy form can be considered the true parent of the piano concerto as we know it in its final version'. Autograph full score (ink and pencil) with muc...
f. 1-1v. Headed in the hand of Eric Fenby (green ink): 'Early attempt at piano piece'. 71 bars in 3/4 time, in G minor/B major in a mazurka style, scored in ink. f. 1v. (Upside-down), a 21-bar pencil sketch for voice and pianoforte. f. 2-2v. Headed (in pencil): 'Rhapsody good'. Harmonic plan on t...
Frederick Delius (Beecham Accession): Instrumental Music
Scope & Content:
(1). ff. 1-14. Piano solo ff. 1-2. 'Pensées Mélodieuses (No. 2)'. Signed and dated 'June 10/85'. F major, C Allegro Moderato. Ink, fair copy. 2 leaves, 12 stave 336 x 263 mm. (Threlfall, IX/2.) f. 3. A single page composition, probably incomplete, with only the number 'I' as a heading. Without d...
The notebook (undated) contains notes, in ink and in pencil, for several works, as follows: Koanga: 'Calinda dance' (f. 97); 'Quintette' (f. 98); 'Entracte to 3rd Act Koanga' (f. 104); and a two-page description (in English) of the 'Prelude to III Act' (ff. 123v-124, notebook inverted and revers...
Frederick Delius (Beecham Accession): Cynara; Songs of Sunset; Fennimore and Gerda
Scope & Content:
(1). Cynara: sketches and drafts Threlfall, III/5. (a) ff. 1-24. A green Boosey & Hawkes' Manilla Cover housing various sketches and a voice/piano reduction by Eric Fenby: f. i. Front cover inscribed 'Cynara' by Sir Thomas Beecham. ff. 1-12. Six manuscript strips and fragments, lettered (a...
Menoy i khrad followed by fragments of Afrins and Aogemadaeca
Scope & Content:
The Pazand-Sanskrit version of the Mēnōy ī khrad followed by fragments of Āfrīns and Aogemadaēca Contents: (1) The Pazand-Sanskrit version of the Pahlavi Mēnōy ī khrad composed by Naryosangh Dhaval in the12th century. Although it lacks the first folio containing Naryosangh’s introduction, the...