MS Mus. 289

MS Mus. 289. SIR MICHAEL TIPPETT: music manuscripts; 1952 – [1970?] . Purchased at Sotheby’s, 4 Dec. 1998 (lots 315-317).

ff. 43.

1. ff. 1-11. ‘Dance, Clarion Air, a madrigal for five voices’ (words, Christopher Fry), from ‘A Garland for the Queen’; 1952. Score, in black ink, with text in blue and passages for semi-chorus in red ink. Copy, with autograph annotations in ink and pencil. The annotations consist of dynamic markings and other performance notes, and notes for the engraver. Dated ‘Tidebrook, December 17th – 31st 1952’ (f. 11). ‘Commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain for the Coronation of 1953’ (f. 2). The autograph pencil score is Add. 61768. Published Stainer & Bell, 1953. 302 x 239mm.

2. f. 12. ‘The Midsummer Marriage’, opera in three acts to a libretto by the composer; [1952?]. A single leaf containing a passage rewritten to enable a cut in the third act, between figures 407 and 419. Autograph, in ink. Several cuts were made for the recording issued in 1971 from the 1970 production at Covent Garden, but this is the only cut which required a passage to be rewritten. The pencil full score is Add. 53771, and Add. 53771 B, f. 114 is a pencil score of the same passage; its presence in this manuscript suggests that the cut was written at the time of original composition, even though it may not have been used until the later production. The full score was first published by Schott in 1954, and reprinted in 1975 with this passage included as an appendix on pp. 705-6. One leaf from the ink full score is Add. 61766. One further leaf of the ink score (p. 1) is reproduced in E. W. White, Tippett and his Operas (1979), between pp. 48 and 49, and I. Kemp, Tippett (1984), between pp. 210 and 211. 357 x 263mm.

3. ff. 13-43. Symphony no.2; 1958. First and second violin parts. Dyeline copy of a copyist’s manuscript, with extensive annotations in pencil by Paul Beard, leader of the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, and rewritten passages in ink in another hand. Initialled ‘PB’ (ff. 13, 31). The annotations are chiefly bowing marks and instructions to write out the parts at the lower octave to avoid leger lines, but also include comments relating to the copying of the parts (‘Shocking turn for solo violin after 102’, f. 22v). The passage at figure 8 is rewritten so as to give the appearance of regular four-semiquaver groupings divided at the bar-line, instead of the groupings of three and four semiquavers over the bar-lines which the composer intended. In practice, this intended simplification caused more problems than anticipated, and the first performance broke down at this point: see Kemp, Tippett, pp. 53-4, and Tippett, Those Twentieth-Century Blues (1991), pp. 207-9. With a discarded leaf from the viola part of another piece, in the same copyist’s hand (f. 43). The pencil full score is Add. 61776 and the ink full score 61777. Published Schott, 1958. 306 x 244mm.

includes:

• ff. 1-11 Christopher Fry, dramatist: 'Dance, Clarion Air' by Michael Tippett , to words by Christopher Fry: 1952.
• ff. 13-43 Paul Beard, violinist: Annotations to the violin parts of Michael Tippett's Symphony no.2: 1958.