A. Campra. Early eighteenth-century manuscript short score of the opera "Tancrède", 1726

CAMPRA, ANDRÉ

Contemporary manuscript short score of Tancrède, an opera in a prologue and five acts, 1726

with separate tables of the instrumental pieces ("Airs pour les Instruments de Musique") and airs ("Table des airs à chanter..."), elaborate illustrated title-page in ink and hand-colour (coat of arms lettered "Non retuli sine cruce rosas"), coloured title above the 'Prologue', the music written in brown ink on up to twelve hand-ruled staves per page,

265 pages in all, small folio (c.27 x 18cm), the music paginated 1-261, bell watermark throughout, including flyleaves, 12-stave hand-ruled paper, contemporary mottled calf, red-gilt title label to spine ("Tancre[de]"), very worn, splitting hinges, some staining mainly at the start and end of the volume

André Campra (1660-1744) was the leading French composer of opera and opera-ballet between Lully and Rameau. Tancrède was named by Rameau as Campra's masterpiece; this tragédie en musique was first staged at the Paris Opéra on 7 November 1702 and was performed regularly until 1764. This manuscript contains thirty-one instrumental pieces, including twenty-three dance numbers, and forty-six airs. A similar elaborate title page, dated 1736 and also bearing a coat of arms with the motto "Non retuli sine cruce rosas", can be found in a manuscript of J.J. Quantz flute sonatas in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris (Rés. F.M. 1122^bis [3]); see E. Reilly, Quantz and his Versuch (1971), p.148.

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