Zweig MS 73

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 sketched in score, mostly occupying the top four staves of each page; the first is headed ‘Vals’ and instructions regarding repeats are given in French on f. 2v. For the present order the volume was subsequently reversed, and the main part of each page filled with sketches. Many of these are of a single musical line, using bass, tenor and treble clefs, often within the same piece, which would suggest they are cello lines. Verbal indications of key within these single line sketches are given in German, and one of them (f. 4v) is headed ‘Marsch’. A four-part instrumental work appears on f. 4r. Attestations of authenticity in French in pencil in a later hand appear on f. 1r and, in the same hand and with the date 1855 added, on f. i (front free fly-leaf of portfolio). The upper cover of the old binding used as a portfolio for the manuscript has, in French in ink in another hand, an identification of the sketches as ‘pour ses oeuvres La belle Hélène etc.’

Despite the inscription on the old portfolio no sketches for La belle Hélène have been identified in this little book. The presence of sketches for unaccompanied cello, and perhaps also the format and paper, suggest an early date.