Max Bruch. Autograph manuscript full score of the Overture to his opera "Die Loreley", April 1863

BRUCH, MAX

Autograph manuscript full score of the Overture to the opera "Die Loreley" op.16, April 1863 

with the autograph title page "Einleitung zur Loreley. Partitur” (the original title “Overture” deleted), dated "Mannheim April 1863" on the title, the full score notated in dark brown ink on seventeen staves per page (for flutes, oboes, clarinets in A, bassoons, 2 horns in F, 2 horns in E, 2 trumpets in E, 3 trombones, tympani, harp and strings), with many deletions and alterations, and additions in pencil,

19 pages, folio (c.33 x 24cm), 20-stave paper, two blanks between pp.15 & 16 originally stuck together, Mannheim, April 1863 (“Instrumentiert an Pfingst-Sonntag 1863”), modern cloth-backed boards, trimmed by the binder, with slight loss to top edges, browning to title, occasional staining by the composer, lower corners well-thumbed by the conductor throughout, 

RARE: We have been unable to trace any other surviving autograph manuscripts for Bruch's opera Die Loreley (1863). This is the most substantial autograph manuscript by the composer to have been offered for over twenty-five years. This is a richly lyrical piece, based on the 'Gesang der Loreley' in Act 2, and is still performed separately as a concert work.

Composed to a libretto by Emanuel Geibel, Die Loreley is one of Bruch's his most significant works, produced three years before the famous Violin Concerto op.26. A complete recording of Die Loreley was released in January this year, based on the performance at the Prinzregententheater in Munich in 2014.