MS Mus. 140

MS Mus. 140. GIUSEPPE SARTI: ‘D’Emirena la voce: Scena con strumenti ed Aria del Sig: Giuseppe Haydn’; late 18th cent. Recitative (‘D’Emirena la voce’) and Aria (‘Deh m’aspetta un sol momento’) for soprano and Duet (‘Idol mio ti vivi ancora’) for two sopranos, with two oboes, two horns, two violins, two violas and bass. Copy, in ink. The scena is here attributed to Haydn, but is in fact taken from Sarti’s opera ‘Attalo, Re di Bitinia’ (words, Antonio Salvi), first performed at the Teatro di S. Benedetto in Venice in 1782. Other copies of the recitative and aria alone are known in MS CI.VIII.14 of the Fondazione Querini-Stampalia in Venice and MS 1312 of the Bartók Museum in Budapest. The complete scena is also found in Add. 29967, ff. 1-30, where it is attributed to Giuseppe Sarti, ‘In Venezia l’Autunno 1787, nel Teatro di S. Benedetto’. There are a few minor variants between the texts of Add. 29967 and MS Mus. 140, most notably that the first line of the former reads ‘D’Ademira la voce’, and the music from f. 20v to f. 23, bar 1 of the latter is omitted from it. Add. 29967 represents a subsequent adaptation of the scena to make an addition to the 1787 revival in Venice of Angelo Tarchi’s opera ‘Ademira’, first performed in Milan in 1783. The present manuscript is clearly that described by H. C. Robbins Landon in Haydn in England, 1791-1795 (1976), pp. 376-7, at which time it was in the Biblioteca Papafava in Padua. The paper bears the watermark of the firm of Olibro, Comici & Zucchetta of Venice. The aria and duet were published in the Journal d’ariettes italiennes, cxci (Paris: Bailleux, [1786]). Purchased from Lisa Cox, 5 March 1998.

ff. 28. 230 x 315mm. 20th-cent. half-leather binding with marbled boards.