Beschreibung:

Fritz Spiegl
The music collection of Fritz Spiegl (musician, humorist and broadcaster, 1926-2003)
comprising autograph and typed letters, autograph musical manuscripts, and photographic portraits of composers and musicians, including by
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Autograph letter signed ("Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy"), in English, to the copyist William Goodwin, ABOUT HIS MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM music, asking him to send him his score immediately, as well as his conducting baton and the bill for copying his Overture in C minor, 1 page, 18.2 x 22.5cm, cut down from a larger leaf, autograph address panel, remains of red wax seal, [London,] 29 May 1844, some browning; Hector Berlioz. Autograph letter signed ("H. Berlioz") to Antoine Elwart, requesting him not to write to him about their monthly dinner engagement, as he is sure he will not be able to take part, 1 page, integral autograph address panel, [Paris], 1 June 184[...?] [assigned to 1840 in Correspondence générale, viii], old repair to fold, traces of mount to integral; Gioachino Rossini. Lithographic portraits of the composer inscribed and signed ("Figaro giù...Figaro su! Offert a mon Banquier au meilleur de mes amis a Monsieur Emile Brandeis...G. Rossini..."), the oval-shaped images of the older and younger composer cut out and laid down on card, framed and glazed, Paris, 1 January 1866; Giuseppe Verdi. Printed visiting-card inscribed with a five-line message to [Giuseppe] Auteri, thanking him for his best wishes and sending his own in return, [possibly Milan or Genoa, 1890s]; Jules Massenet. Autograph musical quotation from Werther, inscribed to Lady Campbell Clarke, 3 bars; Richard Strauss. Fine drypoint portrait of the composer, by Orlík, signed by the artist in pencil, overall size c.34 x 24cm, 1917; Claude Debussy. Photographic portrait of the composer inscribed and signed by Emma Debussy, framed and glazed, no date; J.C. Pepusch (engraved portrait, an illustration to the Universal Magazine, 19.5 x 12cm, no date); Delius (photograph of the composer being read to in his garden by a German nurse); and autograph and typed letters signed by Vaughan Williams (2, and a drawing of the composer by Gwyneth Cole, 1946), Charles Hallé, Noel Rawsthorne (2), Humphrey Searle (2 autograph letters signed and an inscribed score of his Divertimento for flute and strings), George Grossmith (autograph musical quotation from 'See me dance the polka', 14 November 1895), Julius Harrison (autograph musical score of Worcester pieces for piano, signed, 1918 [?]), Carl Fuchs (Hallé's violoncellist, photograph inscribed and signed, 10 August 1905), Marcel Dupré, Paderewski (signature), Bernstein (2 pages, on a correspondence card, 18 July 1985), Lennox Berkeley (2, one with a 3-note musical motif), Imogen Holst (autograph letters signed, 2 pages, 18 December 1974), Hans Gál (5 typed letters signed, and a score of his Huyton Suite, 1948), Hoddinott, Hugh Wood, Arthur Butterworth, Rosamund Strode, Han de Vries, Thea King, Manoug Parikian (2), Norman Del Mar (3), Colin Davis, Adrian Boult, Sir John Barbirolli (1 typed letter signed, and an inscribed and initialled sick bag), George Malcom (2), Eric Crozier, Carl Dolmetsch, Gerard Hoffnung (c.11, and one drawing and an inscribed first-edition copy of 'The Hoffnung Music Festival', 1956), Gabriel Howe (sister-in-law of the pianist Denis Matthews; 2 autograph letters signed, one of 17 pages with an anecdote about Malcom Sargent at the Albert Hall bus stop 'plus 100% smashing young blonde'), Steve Race, John Amis, (2), Charles Mackerras (3), Niky ([Michael Isaacson] two autograph cartoons, one entitled 'designs for Wagnerian heroine'), Rafael Kubelík (signed score of Mozart's 'Prague' symphony, K.504), Hans Keller, Felix Aprahamian, Raymond Leppard, Christa Landon, Janet Craxton, Edward Heath (autograph letter signed, about 'Das Land ohne Musik', with Spiegl's typed reply), Christopher Hogwood, Julian Lloyd Webber, Gillian Weir
together with: 17 autograph or typed poems by Roger McGough (including 'Princes Park Lake', 'Lollipopman', 'Clank', 'Spring poem', 'Wink', 'Hawick', 'Sandbags'), a number signed, and one autograph postcard signed, 17 pages in all, no place or date; and autograph and typed letters signed including by Florence Nightingale (clipped signature), Augustus John (signature), William Etty Gladstone (autograph letter signed), George Bernard Shaw (1 autograph letter signed, to the editor of the Oldham Evening Standard, 2 pages, Venice, 1 June 1929, and an initialled and signed visiting card), Joyce Grenfell, Kingsley Amis (3), Sarah Bernhardt John Betjeman Beryl Bainbridge, Margaret Drabble, Neil Kinnock (2), Jan Morris, Bernard Miles (6 typed letters signed), Johnny Morris, Willy Rushton (signed autograph cartoon), Bill Oddie, 'Professor' Stanley Unwin (autograph notebook and two letters), Jeremy Isaacs, Irene Thomas, and Bill Tidy
over 250 items in all, various sizes, some items with autograph annotations by Spiegl, Liverpool, London, Paris, and elsewhere, C19th and C20th
The joyously diverse music collection of the late, great music writer and humorist Fritz Spiegl, whose witty and knowledgeable radio programmes and publications were required listening and reading for music devotees and aficianados of English usage for four decades from the '60s onwards.