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

… 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

London. J. Walsh, 1743.

First edition. Greene was organist and composer to the Chapels Royal, and an admirer and sometime friend of Handel (their friendship expiring on the occasion of Handel’s quarrel with Buononcini). Forty Select Anthems, setting Psalms and other Biblical texts, is ‘the work on which his...

£850

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

Paris, 15 May 1846.

Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) showed musical promise at an early age and entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1810, becoming a pupil of Cherubini for composition the following year. In 1827 he became professor of harmony and accompaniment there, in 1833 of counterpoint and fugue, and in 1840 of composition....

£750

[London,] 1793.

First edition, scarce, of the libretto to The Prize by Prince Hoare, scored by Stephen Storace.

£350

[Leipzig, Mainzer Presse for Insel-Verlag, 1928.]

First edition of Hofmannsthal’s text for Richard Strauss’s opera, one of 200 numbered copies – Hofmannsthal himself considered it to be his finest libretto.

£750

London, Printed for C. and S. Thompson … [1770?]

First edition thus, very rare, of this Magdalen Chapel Hymnbook, with a total of thirty-eight tunes: twenty-four hymns, three anthems, nine psalms, ‘The Wish’ and ‘The Ode’.

£1750

Padua, ‘dalla Tipografia e Fonderia della Minerva’, 1821.

First edition of Majer’s treatise on Italian music, ‘a conservative defence of tradition as part of a backlash against the popularity of Rossini’s reforms’ (Baragwanath, p. 29).

£450

London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram, and E. Symon, 1730.

First London edition of the first history of music in English by a British author; it is a reissue of the Edinburgh-printed first edition of 1721 with a cancel title-page and the dedication removed.

£1100

Paris, René Guignard, 1681.

First edition. A Jesuit professor at Lyons and later Paris, Menestrier developed ‘a special interest in the history and organization of public festivals and ceremonies’. He devised ballets for the visit of Louis XIV to Lyons in 1658 and published a series of works on the subject. ‘The four...

£600

Milan, Tamburini and Valdoni, 1843.

Scarce edition of this set of rites for the admission of women to convents in the province of Milan, covering their investiture, tonsure, and vows, with instructions printed in red, texts to be spoken and sung in black, and with printed music for hymns and blessings. The first edition appears...

£200

Paris, Editions de la Sirène, 1920.

First edition of Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (The ox on the roof, or The nothing-doing bar), a surrealist ballet-farce which became extremely popular in 1920s Paris.

£2400

[Paris, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1921.]

First edition of Milhaud’s polytonal musical setting of two poems by Mallarmé, published as a New Year supplement for La revue musicale.

£750

1805-1855.

An appealing commonplace book of verses and songs, with occasional prayers and letters, mostly written by George Moore (1794–1854), a London soda water manufacturer and amateur poet who was murdered by the notorious French revolutionary Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855).

£550

London, mostly Birchall & Co., 1810s–1820s.

A good collection of late Georgian piano duets, including adaptations from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, along with a few original compostions by Dussek, Mazzinghi, etc. A full list is available...

£350

Mostly London, 1769–1775. 

An impressive collection of string trios and quartets, including compositions by Giordani, Boccherini, J. C. Bach, Abel, and the virtuoso Maddalena Sirmen, as well as the first publication in England of any work by Haydn (the quartets Op.1 and 2). 

£1250

London, Printed by W. Godbid for J. Playford, at his Shop … 1671.

First edition of the first harmonised Psalter after the Restoration, a landmark work in the re-introduction of part-singing into churches.

£1850

[Belgium, 1777 and later].

An interesting commonplace of verses, songs, madrigals, epigrams, carols, and fables, many of which are apparently unpublished, compiled for the use of Albertine de Cassina (1749–1816), Comtesse de Wonsheim, who married Charles de Lichtervelde (1741–1803) in 1769.

£750

Pesaro, Gavelli, 1726.

First edition, very rare, of the libretto of an opera performed at Pesaro in 1726, bound in red damask most likely for presentation to the dedicatee, Teresa Borromeo Albani.

£1250