THE FITZWILLIAM MUSIC being a Collection of sacred Pieces, selected from Manuscripts of Italian Composers in the Fitzwilliam Museum, now for the first Time published by permission of the University of Cambridge, by Vincent Novello, Organist to the Portuguese Embassy … London, Jos. Alfred Novello … [c.1840].

Date d'édition : 1840

A propos de cet article

5 vols in one, as issued, folio (394 × 281 mm), pp. [4], 324; engraved throughout; some light browning and spotting; original publisher s blind-stamped cloth, spine direct-lettered gilt, rubbed and lightly dust-soiled, front hinge cracking. The new and cheap (i.e. second) edition of the ambitious Fitzwilliam Music publishing project, in which the Fitzwilliam Museum made parts of its important music manuscript collection, bequeathed to the University by Viscount Fitzwilliam in 1816, available for editing and publishing for the first time. In 1824, when Cambridge asked the music publisher Vincent Novello to come select a small group of manuscripts from the collection to be published, he chose sacred music by Continental composers that he knew were unpublished and of which he did not already have manuscript copies (Olleson & Palmer, p. 46), including Lassus, Palestrina, and Pergolesi. The result was a five-volume work, the first of which was published either in December 1825 or very early in 1826 (ibid., p. 50); the final volume was out by the end of 1827. The final work was universally acclaimed: Novello s achievement in transcribing, editing and publishing the five volumes of The Fitzwilliam Music in the space of little more than two years was considerable, and an example of his legendary assiduity (ibid., p. 53). Provenance: from St Michael s College, Tenbury, with the usual ms. pencil shelfmarks to the front pastedown. The College had been founded in 1856 as a model for the performance of Anglican music by the great collector and composer Sir Frederick Ouseley (1825 1889), whose own magnificent assemblage of music and musical literature (Hyatt King, Some British Collectors of Music, Sandars Lectures for 1961, p. 67) passed to the College on his death, where it remained until its dispersal at Sotheby s in 1990. COPAC lists 2 copies of this edition only (BL, Bodley), to which WorldCat adds 2 more (NYPL, Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel). On the background, see Philip Olleson & Fiona Palmer, Publishing Music from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: the work of Vincent Novello and Samuel Wesley in the 1820s , Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 130 (1), Jan. 2005, pp. 38 73.

N° de réf. du vendeur ABE-1565008593583

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: THE FITZWILLIAM MUSIC being a Collection of sacred Pieces, selected from Manuscripts of Italian Composers in the Fitzwilliam Museum, now for the first Time published by permission of the University of Cambridge, by Vincent Novello, Organist to the Portuguese Embassy … London, Jos. Alfred Novello … [c.1840].
• Date de parution: 1840
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 2nd Edition
• État de l'article: Very Good