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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.
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  1. MILHAUD, Darius, and Stéphane MALLARMÉ.

    Deux petits airs …

    [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

  2. MOZART, et al.

    A volume of twelve piano duets adapted from overtures by Mozart, Rossini, and others by J. F. Burrowes, J. Mazzinghi,...

    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

  3. NAPIER, William, publisher and music-seller. 

    Three part-books of trios (complete) and three (of four) of quartets (lacking...

    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

  4. [PALACE THEATRE, SCUNTHORPE.]

    ‘Benefit to A. E. Dobney, Thursday, February 19th, 1914.’

    [Scunthorpe, 1914.]

    A rare broadside programme for a benefit performance at the Palace Theatre in Scunthorpe, printed on crepe paper with a charming block-printed floral border.

    £185

  5. PALLAVICINI, Stefano Benedetto.

    I penitenti al sepolcro del redentore second’il testo Luc. cap. 23. v. 48 … Cantata sacra,...

    [Prague], Johann Norbert Fitzky, [1738].

    A seemingly unrecorded edition of a libretto produced for the Good Friday service in 1738 to be sung in the monumental baroque church of St Francis Seraph in Prague, comprising a dialogue between David, Mary Magdalene, and St Peter in the aftermath of the Crucifixion.

    £650

  6. [PLAINCHANT.]

    Nouvelle méthode pour aprendre le plaint-chant parfaitement et en peu de tems, composée spécialement pour le diocèse...

    Rouen, chez Jore père et fils, [c. 1730].

    A seemingly unrecorded guide to plainchant compiled specifically for the diocese of Rouen, promising its readers perfection in the art in no time at all.

    £750

  7. PLAYFORD, John.

    Psalms & Hymns in solemn Musick of foure Parts on the common Tunes to the Psalms in Metre: used in Parish-Churches....

    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

  8. [PLAYING CARDS.]

    Cartes Magiques Musicales. 1001 Danses pour Piano. / Magical Musical Cards or Thousand and one Dances for Piano.

    Paris, Bass, c. 1830.

    The complete Piquet deck of these rare and unusual musical playing cards including the English rules for the game, a delightful example of a nineteenth-century parlour game produced for the Anglo-French market.

    £3000

  9. [PREDIERI, Luca Antonio, composer; Apostolo ZENO, librettist.]

    La tirannide vendicata, drama per musica, da rappresentarsi...

    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

  10. RAMEAU, Jean-Philippe.

    Zoroastre, tragedie, mise en musique par M. Rameau, représentée pour la premiere fois par l’Académie...

    Paris, Boivin, Leclair, Castagneri and the author, [c. 1750].

    First edition; rare. Despite a strong cast and a lavish production, Zoroastre met with only limited success (and, it seems, much bewilderment) when first performed at the Opéra in 1749. By May 1752 Rameau and the librettist Louis de Cahusac had begun an extensive reworking of the opera. This...

    £5000

  11. RECUEIL DE QUADRILLES

    pour le Piano.

    [France, 1840s?]

    A delightful album, evidently produced as a gift, collecting 17 popular dances arranged for the piano, each with a different decorative title-page. Composers whose work is featured include Philippe Musard (1792–1859), one of the most famous musicians in Europe in the 1830s and ’40s, ‘the doyen...

    £850

  12. RINUCCINI, Ottavio.

    La Dafne, nuovamente stampata in occasione delle felicissime nozze del signor marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini,...

    Florence, Borgognissanti, 1810.

    Scarce edition of Rinuccini’s Dafne, the first printed opera libretto; a rare survival preserved unbound in folded sheets.

    £650

  13. [ROUSSEAU, Pierre.] 

    Considérations sur le théatre de l’opéra.  Novembre 1822. 

    [Paris,] de l’imprimerie de Rignoux, [1822].

    Very rare proposal for a new opera house in Paris by the architect Pierre Rousseau (1751–1829), annotated by the author and accompanied by an autograph letter. 

    £475

  14. SACCHI, Giovenale. 

    Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze.  Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...

    Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761. 

    First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics. 

    £850

  15. [SAINT-LAMBERT, Monsieur de.]

    ‘Les principes du clavecin contenant une explication exacte de tous ce qui concerne la tablature...

    Namur, 1743–4.

    Manuscript copy of Saint-Lambert’s celebrated and rare treatise on the harpsichord (first published 1702), compiled in 1743–4 by a sister of the Carmelite convent in Namur.

    £6750

  16. [SERGEANT, John.]

    Transnatural Philosophy, treating of the Essences and Operations of all Beings whatever. Particularly of the...

    London, for the Author, and to be sold by S. Keble, D. Browne, A, Roper, and G. Strahan, 1706.

    An unusual tract volume of publishing curiosities and rarities.

    £1250

  17. SPRÜNGLI, Johann Jacob, editor. 

    Männergesänge von Freunden der Tonkunst gesammelt, dem Liederkranze zu Franfurt a. M. in Liebe...

    Zürich, gedruckt bei J. J. Ulrich, im Verlage des Herausgebers, 1840.

    First edition, the partbook issue.  The work was also issued in score.  Both are very rare, OCLC locating a copy of the 1st Bass part at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a set at the Swiss National Library.  There are apparently no copies in Germany: KVK shows the British Library copy (in score)...

    £950

  18. TANS’UR, William.

    The Royal Psalmodist compleat: or, the universal-Harmony …

    [St Neots?,] Printed by the Author, 1750.

    Unrecorded edition of Tans’ur’s Royal Psalmodist (first 1742), comprising seventy-three psalm tunes, a ‘Jubilate Deo’, a ‘Doxology’, ‘A New Magnificat’, and eleven anthems. It is based on the same selection (and plates) as he had issued in an edition of 1748 (BL only in ESTC),...

    £850

  19. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Живой Трупъ. Драма въ 6 Дѣйствіяхъ и 12 Картинахъ. [Zhivoi trup....

    Moscow, A. Ia. Petrov, [1911].

    One of the earliest printings of Tolstoy’s Living Corpse, one of a number of editions in 1911, the year it was first staged, posthumously, at the Moscow Arts Theatre, offered with a traditional Roma folk song included in the performance of Act II of The Living Corpse, first edition thus,...

    £1750

  20. VERHEYEN, Pierre Emmanuel.

    Requiem mass in C minor.

    [Flanders, c. 1810.]

    A very grand unpublished Requiem mass in memory of Franz Joseph Haydn, by the Flemish composer and singer Pierre Emmanuel Verheyen (1750–1819).

    £4750