Antiques Trade Gazette 35


on vellum of musicians and singers of the Hofkapelle at the court of Mecklenburg- Schwerin took £22,000 at Sotheby’s. It is illustrated and further described left. Sold for £21,000 at Sotheby’s was a


1725, Amsterdam first edition of a work, Il cimento dell’ armonia e dell’inventione [The Test of Harmony and Invention] that, in the absence of any surviving autograph, would appear to provide the principal source for one of the best-loved works in the concert repertoire, Antonio Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni [The Four Seasons]. Manuscript copies prepared under the


composer’s supervision in 1726 suggest that this collection of Vivaldi concerti, printed and published by Le Cène, offers authentic versions of all 12 concertos, and this would appear to be the only copy ever to come to auction. It seems that there is no complete


copy in UK collections and the copy in the British Library lacks the second cello part, containing the obligato for the ‘Largo,’ in the fourth concerto, ‘Winter’. This leaf is missing from most surviving copies, simply because it was printed as a loose leaf, but it was present and correct in this example. There was no sign of an engraved portrait of Vivaldi sometimes found, but only the copy in the Paris Conservatoire contains both the portrait and that elusive ‘Winter’ leaf. One of the earlier printed music lots


seen in recent months, a rare 1546 edition of a 16th century Spanish work, Morales’ Missarum... which took $28,000 (£17,690) at Swanns in New York on October 17, is illustrated opposite. A collection of autograph music,


inscribed scores and other mementos of Edward Elgar’s later-life relationship with violinist Vera Hockman was sold for £18,000 at Bonhams on November 22. The death of his wife, Alice, in 1920


removed Elgar’s principal support and inspiration and this loss, combined with a growing indifference to his music by the musical establishment, presaged a decade in which he composed little of real note. Then in 1931, at a rehearsal for The


Dream of Gerontius, the 73-year-old composer met Vera Hockman. The attraction was instant and mutual and for


the three years that remained to him, they spent much of their time together. Elgar began composing again, but the


old insecurity remained and one item in this archive was a Novello printed score of his 1912 composition, The Music Makers, a work for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, he gave Vera when she left his home after the 1932 Worcester Festival. In it Elgar has circled the last line of the Arthur O’Shaugnessy poem that forms the libretto “And a singer no more”, before adding below, “i.e. Edward Elgar, 1932”. The most important items in the


archive, however, were the first and last sketch leaves for his unfinished Third Symphony – which Anthony Payne famously completed from the surviving part score and sketches in 2000. The leaves are now foxed and worn, as well as being marked through with a K, indicating that that they had been properly transcribed for the score, but both are inscribed to V.H. Bid to £175,000 at Sotheby’s was


what the auctioneers categorised as “undoubtedly the most important Benjamin Britten manuscript ever offered for sale at auction”. Hitherto unrecorded, this was the


autograph working manuscript for the music to the Crown Film Unit’s 1945 production for the Ministry of Education, Instruments of the Orchestra – a complete composition draft, in short score, of that much-loved Britten composition we now know as The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra or, more formally, as Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell. The original film version incorporates


Britten’s own commentary (narrated by Malcolm Sargent), which differs from that provided by Eric Crozier for the score as later published. Sold for £16,000 at Sotheby’s was a


comprehensively corrected and amended proof of the original version of Britten’s opera, The Rape of Lucretia. The first production, which also marked


the operatic debut of Kathleen Ferrier in the title role, took place at Glyndebourne in June and July, 1946, and the corrections were made to these engraved proofs during that period.


Bibliophile Sales Monthly Sales held in Godalming


Now Welcoming Consignments


Contact Clive Moss: cmoss@bloomsburyauctions.com


Middleton (Charles) The Architect and Builder’s Miscellany… 8vo, For the Author, 1799. Sold for £670 including buyer’s premium


Baily.- Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, vol.1-68 8vo, 1860-97. Sold for £1,800 including buyer’s premium


Baverstock House, 93 High Street, Godalming, Surrey GU7 1AL t +44 (0) 1483 423567 f +44 (0) 1483 426392 godalming@dnfa.com www.dnfa.com/godalming


Free Live Online Bidding


Photos hit the right note


HARRY Spilstead (1925-2008) was an autograph collector and dealer specialising in classical music and opera and a November 26-27, International Autograph Auctions sale offered his personal collection in some 365 lots, the vast majority of them signed and/ or inscribed photographs. The quartet that I have selected


to represent this sale is of unusual formation – two cellos, French horn and baritone. Seen above right is a portrait


of cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903- 76) that sold for £950 and above, another of Jacqueline du Pré (1945- 87) to which a musical quotation,


titled simply ’Adagio’, has been added to her signature. The latter sold at £800, while the signed postcard photograph of another great artist who died tragically young, the French horn virtuoso, Dennis Brain (1921-57), below left, reached £1200. All three had been rather more modestly valued in the £100-200 range. Among the signed photographs


of singers in the IAA sale was a large full-length portrait of the French baritone Victor Maurel, below, in the role of Iago in Verdi’s Otello. Morel had sung the part when the opera was premiered at La Scala in 1887 and six years later created the title role in Verdi’s Falstaff. It sold at £1800.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64