Music
Contact Alex Day or Donovan Rees
We stock a range of antiquarian music, books on music, manuscripts and autographs, with an emphasis on early printed editions and manuscript scores of important composers.
Recent catalogues have included one of a very few surviving lifetime manuscripts of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas; a remarkable collection of vocal and instrumental music from the library of the duchesse de Berry; and inscribed first editions of works by Berg, Janacek, Poulenc, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams.-
ARISTIDES, Aelius.
Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine versi a Gulielmo Cantero Ultraiectino. Huc accessit orationum tomus...
Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.
First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy once owned by one of the preeminent music theorists and composers of Renaissance Italy, Gioseffo Zarlino. The translation was prepared from the Greek by the German scholar Wilhelm Canter (1542–1575), author of an acclaimed Syntagma, a systematic...
£2750
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AUDEN, Wystan Hugh, and Chester KALLMAN.
The Magic Flute.
London, Faber & Faber, [1957].
First UK edition.
£125
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BLANCHET, Joseph.
L’art, ou les principes philosophiques du chant. IIe edition, corrigée et augmentée.
Paris, Augustin-Martin Lottin, Michel Lambert and Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, 1756.
First edition. The designation ‘IIe edition, corrigée et augmentée’ on the title arises from the publication in 1755 of L’art du chant, dedié a Madame de Pompadour by Jean-Antoine Bérard, whom Blanchet accuses of incorporating his material. The two works certainly include many passages which...
£750
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BROWN, Arthur Henry (1830-1926), composer and church organist.
Autograph manuscript notebook mainly of Christmas carols compiled...
1864-1887
For all but five years of his long career Brown was organist at churches in Brentwood, Essex, and at Sir Anthony Browne’s School in the town. He was a fertile composer of more than 800 pieces of church music, including the hymn tunes ‘Ingatestone’, ‘Purleigh’, ‘Saffron Walden’, and ‘Tiltey...
£450
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BURNEY, Charles.
An Account of the musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon, May 26th, 27th, 29th; and June...
London, Printed for the Benefit of the musical Fund; and sold by T. Payne and Son ... 1785.
First edition. The Handel Commemoration Concerts of 1784, conceived the previous year by Viscount Fitzwilliam, Sir Watkins Williams Wynn and Joah Bates to celebrate the centenary of the birth of George Frederick Handel, were performances on a scale then unprecedented in England. On the morning of Wednesday...
£1250
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CAVALCANTI, Bartolomeo.
La retorica … divisa in sette libri, dove si contiene tutto quello, che appartiene all’arte Oratoria. In...
Venice, Gabriel Giolitto, 1559.
Second edition, published in the same year as the first with a few amendments, of the earliest Italian and most innovative treatise on rhetoric. The author ‘builds an original account of rhetoric by adding Ciceronian and Hermogenean material to an Aristotle base’ (Mack, p. 172).
£2250
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[CONGREGATION OF THE ORATORY OF ST PHILIP NERI.]
A collection of seven componimenti sacri per musica for the Oratory of...
Venice, 1746-1787.
A collection of seven libretti for sacred oratorios, to be performed in the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Venice.
£375
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[GEORGE V.]
The Form and Order of the Service that is to be performed and of the Ceremonies that are to be observed in the Coronation...
London, Novello & Company, 1911.
A handsome copy of the Coronation service, with choral settings of the music sung, including (among others) Parry’s ‘I was glad’, Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’, and ‘God save the King!’, arranged by Sir Frederick Bridge (1844–1924), organist at Westminster Abbey.
£450
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[GEORGE VI.]
The Form and Order of the Service that is to be performed and the Ceremonies that are to be observed in the Coronation...
London, Novello & Company, 1937.
A handsome copy of the Coronation service, with choral settings of the music sung, including work by Purcell, Handell, Byrd, and Vaughan Williams.
£275
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[GLUCK, Christoph Willibald.]
Paride ed Elena. Dramma per musica . . . dedicato a sua altezza, il Signor Duca Don Giovanni di Braganza.
Vienna, Johann Thomas von Trattner, 1770.
First edition of Gluck’s Paride ed Elena, which tells the story of events between the judgment of Paris and the flight of Paris and Helen to Troy. It was premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 3 November 1770.
£5000
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[GOETHE.]
REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich. Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt. Erste...
Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11].
Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time.
£6500
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GOUNOD, Charles François.
A volume of ten songs bound together, all signed and inscribed by Gounod to Arthur Cecil Blunt (1832–96).
A specially bound volume containing ten of Gounod’s London-published songs, all signed and inscribed in pencil on the upper wrapper to the English actor Arthur Cecil Blunt (stage name Arthur Cecil, 1843–1896): ‘To my friend Arthur C. Blunt. Ch, Gounod’. The songs, of which eight are in English,...
£2000
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[GRAND TOUR.]
Sammelband of nine manuscript and four printed works for solo piano and for voice with piano accompaniment.
[Italy and Germany, c. 1815.]
An attractive compilation of solo piano music and popular songs, gathered partly in Italy circa 1815-16 (no doubt during a Grand Tour) and bound up in England shortly afterwards.
£2500
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GRASSINEAU, James.
A Musical Dictionary; being a Collection of Terms and Characters, as well ancient as modern; including the historical,...
… London: Printed for J. Wilcox … 1740.
First edition, based largely on the Dictionnaire de Musique of Sébastien de Brossard and the musical articles in Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, with some original material. One of two variant issues, this has ‘A’ on the title-page above the ‘i’ in ‘Dictionary’.
£650
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GROSSI, G. B. Gennaro.
Le Belle Arti.
Naples, dalla tipografia del Giornale Enciclopedico, 1820.
First edition in book form, reprinted from the Giornale Enciclopedico di Napoli, with some additional material in an appendix to the second volume. The first volume is on the music and musicians of Naples, the second volume deals with Neapolitan painters up to the eighteenth century.
£150
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HOFMANNSTHAL, Hugo von.
Die Aegyptische Helena. Oper in zwei Aufzügen.
[Leipzig, Mainzer Presse for Insel-Verlag, 1928.]
First edition of Hofmannsthal’s text for Richard Strauss’s opera – Hofmannsthal himself considered it to be his finest libretto. The opera was first performed on 6 June 1928 in Dresden, five weeks before Hofmannsthal’s death. The plot is a free adaptation of Euripides’ Helena, which introduces...
£750
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LECLAIR, Jean Marie.
Troisieme Livre de Sonates a violon seul avec la Basse Continue… Oeuvre V.
Paris, l’auteur, [1734].
First edition. A luxury production, including some of the finest French baroque violin music, dedicated to King Louis XV, who had recently appointed Leclair ‘Ordinaire de la musique de la chambre du roy’
£2250
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LIGETI, [György], and Luigi CASTIGLIONI (binder).
Artikulation: Elektronische Musik, eine Hörpartitur von Rainer...
Mainz, B. Schott’s sons, 1970.
First edition of the graphic Hörpartitur to Ligeti’s ground-breaking electronic composition, with a vinyl recording of the piece, number 186 of 200 copies signed and numbered by the composer, in a striking design binding by the acclaimed contemporary bookbinder and musicologist Luigi Castiglioni....
£14000
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MAJER, Andrea.
Discorso sulla origine, progressi, e stato attuale della musica italiana …
Padua, ‘dalla Tipografia e Fonderia della Minerva’, 1821.
First edition of Majer’s treatise on music, ‘a conservative defence of tradition as part of a backlash against the popularity of Rossini’s reforms’ (Baragwanath, p. 29).
£185
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MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, Felix.
Symphonie No. 3, componirt und Ihrer Majestät der Königin Victoria von England zugeeignet … Partitur,...
Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1843].
First edition of Mendelssohn’s ‘Scottish’ Symphony. It was first conceived when Mendelssohn visited Scotland during 1829, but the composer only began work in earnest ten years later.
£1500