T he highlight of the winter Music Sale, which Sotheby’s is delighted to present, is an extraordinary collection of 44 autograph letters, largely unpublished, by Johannes Brahms to the great nineteenth-century Handel scholar Friedrich Chrysander. Other notable items include: a substantial portion of the autograph of Chrysander’s epochal Handel biography; a spectacular series of 22 letters by Sibelius to the American conductor Werner Janssen; and a number of fine autograph letters by Bellini, Berlioz, Verdi, Holst and Villa-Lobos, and also the first Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Nancy Storace. Four sumptuous original set and costume designs by Franco Zeffirelli, music autographs by Mendelssohn, Rossini, Offenbach, Gounod and Holst, and a varied selection of first and early editions by Leclair, Bach, Louise Reichardt, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Stravinsky are also being offered. A special section at the end of the sale is comprised of 12 lots of music manuscripts by modern British composers, including Birtwistle, Adès, Benjamin, Saxton, MacMillan, Suckling, Weir, and John Rutter, sold in aid of the University of York Music Press (UYMP).