G. F. Handel. Fine eighteenth-century German manuscript of the Eight Keyboard Suites

Handel, George Frideric

Fine eighteenth-century German manuscript titled "VIII Suites Pour le Clavecin del Sig^r Haendel", with six later German editions of Handel

written in a fine scribal hand, in brown ink, on seven systems per page, with some omitted bars notated in the lower margins and marked with cues, with contemporary annotations concerning the order of the movements, possibly in the same early hand ("[Suite III] Hierauf folget gleich das Allegro das nach der Allemande stehet"; "[Allemande] Das folgende Allegro gehet vor diesem her"; "[Allegro] Dieses geht vor dem vorhergehenden her"; [Suite VI] NB hier folgt erst das Allegro einer Fuge und als dann erst die Guigue Presto"; "Das folgende Allegro muß nach dieser Gigue hergehen"; "[Allegro] NB Dieses Allegro gehet noch vor der vorhergehenden Gigue her")   

48 pages, 4to (c. 30.5 x 27cm), 14-stave paper, hand-ruled staves, priced on title in pencil ("Koste 3 Kr 12 gr"), contemporary grey-marbled card wrappers, spine lacking backstrip, no place or date, German provenance, probably mid-eighteenth century  

Eighteenth century German sources for Handel's works are rarely offered for sale. We have not traced any German editions of Handel's Suites which might have provided a model for this manuscript. Handel published his Suite de pièces himself in 1720, to forestall pirated versions which quickly appeared in Amsterdam and Paris. There was none in German-speaking lands before Nägeli's in Zurich in 1802. 

In this manuscript, the 'Allemande' in the D minor Suite no. 3, is written out before the 'Allegro'. Likewise, in the F-sharp minor Suite no. 6, the 'Presto Guigue' appears before the final 'Allegro', although the rubrics pointing out the alterations appear to be contemporary. In the E major Suite no. 5, the familiar opening to the "Harmonious Blacksmith" Air is altered to conform metrically with the subsequent variations (there is no initial bass note and the first two notes in the treble are semiquavers). "Gigue" is also spelled "Gicque" in this manuscript. There is no mention at the end that this is only the "Premier Volume" of Handel's Suites.  

For a similar German binding in marbled wrappers (a "temporary binding"), see the copy of C.P.E. Bach's Sechs Sonaten fürs Clavier mit veränderten Reprisen (1760-1763) in our sale of the André Meyer collection, Sotheby's Paris, 16/17 October 2012, Lot 15.   

This lot also contains six nineteenth-century German editions, including an engraved edition of "Fuge für Piano Forte" from Suite no. 6 [HWV 431 no. 3], Berlin: F.S. Lischke, [c. 1820], 2 volumes of "Ausgewählte Gesangsstücke", Berlin: Trautwein, [c. 1822] and others 

LITERATURE

HWV 426-433