R. STRAUSS, AUTOGRAPH SKETCHES IN PENCIL FOR "JOSEPHSLEGENDE" UND "DER BÜRGER AUS EDELMANN", 1912

SIGNED AND DATED AT THE END BY THE COMPOSER ("DrRichard Strauss Garmisch, 18 August 1912"), in short-score, contained on a double leaf and notated in pencil on up to ten two-stave systems per page, the sketches for Josephslegende being for the 'Tanz der Frauen' and including the music for the boxers, Figures 17-27/4 and 55 onwards, the sketches for Der Bürger als Edelmann being for the entrance of the cooks, no.11 ("Das Diner"), Figures 67-74/9, numerous autograph inscriptions and annotations ("Ballet...Emoll...für Potiphars Frau...Boxer...Ariadne: das Diner..."), some bars with autograph numbering, repeated bars indicated by oblique double strokes, with a number of autograph cancellations, corrections and revisions 4 pages, folio (c.35 x 27cm), 20-stave paper, no place or date [1912], folded several times, splitting along horizontal fold, a few small stains, dust-staining to final page

E.H. Mueller von Asow, Richard Strauss. Thematisches Verzeichnis, ii (Vienna, etc., 1912), p.531; Trenner 231; Norman Del Mar, Richard Strauss, ii (1969), pp.1ff.

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
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A remarkable manuscript containing sketches for two celebrated dramatic works by Strauss.  Josephslegende was Strauss's first complete ballet score, commissioned by Diaghilev for the Ballet Russes. Premiered in Paris on 14 May 1914, its composition overlapped to some extent, as shown here, with that of the incidental music to Der Bürger als Edelmann. Dealing with the attempted seduction of the biblical Joseph by Potiphar's wife, the ballet is a sultry affair on which Strauss lavished music of great psycho-sexual intensity. The passages sketched here are for dances in Scenes II and III, Scene II culminating in the erotic Dance of the Sulamith.

Ariadne auf Naxos was designed to be performed after a performance of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme (Der Bürger als Edelmann), the latter being provided with incidental music by Strauss. The premiere of this first version of Ariadne auf Naxos took place in Stuttgart on 25 October 1912. The dinner scene sketched here is perhaps the pièce de résistance of the instrumental music to Der Bürger als Edelmann: here Strauss gave his imagination full rein, beginning with a grand march into which the composer introduces a reference to the Coronation March from Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, moving on to vivid musical representations of Rhine salmon, mutton and song-birds and concluding with the whirling dance of the kitchen boy