Moscheles, Ignaz

the complete work, notated without the piano part in brown ink on 14- and 8-stave systems, with autograph title ("Concerto") and autograph movement superscriptions for the second and third movements ("Adagio...Rondo / Allegretto. Tempo di Marcia"), containing some erasures, small tear to inner margin of first leaf.

62 pages, folio (35 x 26.5cm), 20-stave paper ("N.^o 16 J. H. Geveke W^we Hannover"), later card folder, no place or date [1823?] some gatherings splitting at hinge, browning

Charlotte Moscheles (trans. A. D. Coleridge), Life of Moscheles, i (London, 1873), pp. 71-2

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is the most substantial autograph manuscript by Moscheles to be offered at auction in modern times.

The decade before 1825, when Moscheles settled in Britain, saw him criss-cross Europe as a travelling recitalist. It was on a long visit to Bath in March 1823 that Moscheles began work on the present concerto. His wife Charlotte recorded Moscheles's delight in seeing the Bristol Channel: "What can be finer" mused the composer, "than the first view of the Welsh mountains from Clifton? an enchanting panorama? The very place to write an adagio; the blue mountains form such a grand background to this bright channel". The main theme of the finale, however, derives its inspiration from a quite different source, being based on the popular tune 'The British Grenadiers'. The concerto was premiered in London a little later on 16 June 1823, and published in parts by Chappell in c. 1825. A noteworthy feature of the score is the lack of the piano part, no more being written than the first bar of the first movement.