Beschreibung:

Handel, George Frideric CONTEMPORARY SCRIBAL MANUSCRIPT OF ACIS AND GALATEA, THE ORIGINAL VERSION IN ENGLISH, AN EARLY COPY DERIVING FROM HANDEL'S LOST CONDUCTING SCORE OF 1718 THE FULL SCORE OF THE COMPLETE SERENATA FOR VOICES AND ORCHESTRA, comprising twenty-two numbers, without a title page, division into acts or the other alterations made by Handel in the 1730s, with English words only, notated in dark brown ink on up to twelve staves per page, mainly in an early English hand (perhaps with a second hand preparing the clefs), with additional bass figuring to some of the airs and the trio, decorated with distinctive ink finials (pp.53, 84, 169, 181 & 211), the characters named as Acis (tenor), Galatea (soprano), Damon (tenor), Coridon ("...3d Tenore"), Polyphemus (bass), and with the following instruments: "Flauto piccolo ottava" (ie sopranino recorder or flageolet), "Hautb[ois]: 1ma", "Hautb: 2do"; "Viol: 1ma"; "Viol: 2do"... "Fagotto è Violoncello solo", "Basso", and "Basso Continuo"; the score includes Coridon's air 'Would you gain the tender creature', several features common with other very early sources, some numbers dropped in the 1730s, the original English versions of 'Love in her eyes sits playing' and 'O ruddier than the cherry', together with all the "choruses" and recitatives 236 pages, large 4to (28.4 x 22.4cm), 12-stave paper, without a title-page, blank leaf at end, English red morocco gilt (second quarter of the eighteenth century), possibly by John Brindley of London, nineteenth-century flyleaves with later library stamps and annotations, some pin-holes in the margins, [English, probably around 1718-1722], overall browning, with some show-through, occasionally heavy, a few pages trimmed by the binder, some holes and stains on pages 77/78 & 117/118 repaired with tape, lower edges somewhat affected by damp and paper loss, binding split, rebacked, very worn, tears to covers, covers loose