Zweig MS 19

Autograph. Written in ink on systems of two staves on both sides of a single leaf. The passages concerned are, on the recto: movement II, bars 200-203, apparently the conclusion of a passage begun on another leaf; movement III, bars 1-22; movement IV, bars 39-47; and on the verso:- movement IV, bars 274-282 and 293-299. Throughout Brahms gives the relevant page numbers in the two-piano version (published Jan. 1882), and all are tutti passages divided there between the two pianos and here reduced for piano solo. All except the brief passage from movement II are annotated in blue and red crayon, and have in pencil editorial additions and the engraver’s markings of line-ends and page numbers in the solo piano score. A later identification of the work and purpose of the manuscript is in ink [possibly in the hand of Max Kalbeck] at the top right of the recto.

McCorkle recounts, with reference to the published correspondence, how the solo piano score was prepared from a copy of the two-piano score, already published, into which Brahms had inserted solo piano arrangements of the tutti passages. The engraver’s markings on the present manuscript indicate that, rather than a draft, it was one of the slips used in preparing the plates for that edition.