Zweig MS 29

Autograph full score. Written in ink on a single system of ten staves on either side of a single leaf. In common time, with the text ‘a vostr’ordine potete entrar’ (recto), ‘Quando mi trova gia maritata sara da ridere col mio Papa’ (verso). Although three lines are left for the vocal parts, only two of them contain music in this fragment. Neither key, time signature, clefs, nor indications of instrumentation are included in the fragment. The scoring is apparently for strings and winds: at bar one the sixth stave has the indication ‘coll’oboi’, and the music on the first stave appears to be for a pair of horns. Note of authentication by Paolo Cimarosa added in ink at bottom of verso: ‘Autenticato Paolo Cimarosa [paraph]’.

Old wrappers in the hands of Zweig and others (Add. MS 73171, ff. 81-2) state that this manuscript contains music from Cimarosa’s best-known opera, ‘Il matrimonio segreto’, but this is apparently not the case. Comparison with the Cimarosa manuscript reproduced by Gerstenberg would suggest that the accompaniment in Zweig MS 29 is scored for horns, oboe 1 and 2, violins 1 and 2, violas, with unfigured bass line. The manuscript is possibly that listed by Schlitzer as appearing as no. 39 in Raccolta Hoepli. Autografi (Milan, 1933).