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 ...
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...
Arnold Schoenberg: Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 16, 1909: copy, written out by the composer and Erwin Stein
Scope & Content:
Autograph full score. Written in ink, on systems of up to 30 staves. Incomplete, comprising nos. I, III, IV and bars 1-16 only of no. V. No. I written jointly by Schoenberg and Stein, the remaining numbers entirely in the hand of the composer. As follows: ff. 1-6r. No. I; tempo marking (f. 1r)...
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...
