Add MS 45939-45941

ETHEL SMYTH COLLECTION. Vols. VI-VIII. 'Les Naufrageurs': opera in three acts to a libretto, in French, by H. B. Brewster. Full score, dated at the end of Act III 'Dec. 13^th. [1905]' (45941, f. 145b). Composed in 1903-1904 (C. St John, op. cit., p. 305) and first performed in Leipzig, 15 Nov. 1906 (What Happened Next, p. 266; A. Loewenberg, op. cit., col. 1274, gives the date as 11 Nov.); a different production followed at Prague, 12 Dec. 1906. Published, in vocal score, by Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1906, and in a revised version incorporating the cuts sanctioned by the composer, by Universal Edition, Vienna, 1916. For an account of the conception of the work, the composer's fruitless efforts to secure performances in London, Monte Carlo and Brussels, and the crises before the Leipzig and Prague productions, see What Happened Next, pp. 233-237, 258-276. The manuscript full score consists of the original version of the opera, as published in the 1906 edition, in which the composer has indicated numerous cuts and revisions, mostly incorporated in the 1916 edition, although some of the revisions, e.g. Scene 5 in Act II (45940, ff. 116b-118b, 126b) represent versions intermediate between the first and revised printed editions. In several places the German translation has been altered from the original version but differs from the final printed text (cf. 45941, f. 30). Some pages of full score have been removed (45939, before f. 5; 45940, ff. 106-114; 45941, ff. 87, 91), presumably by the composer (cf. 45939, f. 4b). A note by her, relating to cuts and instrumentation, is 45939, ff. i-iib.