Music

Contact Alex Day or Donovan Rees

We stock a range of antiquarian music, books on music, manuscripts and autographs, with an emphasis on early printed editions and manuscript scores of important composers.

Recent catalogues have included one of a very few surviving lifetime manuscripts of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas; a remarkable collection of vocal and instrumental music from the library of the duchesse de Berry; and inscribed first editions of works by Berg, Janacek, Poulenc, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams.
  1. [ANTIPHONAL.]

    Antiphonal, with neumes, containing music...

    Southern Germany or Bohemia, mid-fifteenth...

    An unusual and striking antiphonal leaf...

    £3500

  2. ZARLINO, Gioseffo.

    Le Istitutioni harmoniche … nelle quali;...

    Venice, [Pietro da Fino], 1558.

    First edition, rare, of ‘arguably the...

    £15000

  3. CAVALCANTI, Bartolomeo. 

    La retorica … divisa in sette libri,...

    Venice, Gabriel Giolitto, 1559. 

    Second edition, published in the same year...

    £2250

  4. RIDOLFI, Luca Antonio. 

    Aretefila, dialogo, nel quale da una parte...

    Lyons, Guillaume Rouillé, 1562. 

    The third edition (first 1557) of a remarkable...

    £2800

  5. ARISTIDES, Aelius.

    Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine...

    Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.

    First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy...

    £2750

  6. PLAYFORD, John.

    Psalms & Hymns in solemn Musick of foure...

    London, Printed by W. Godbid for J. Playford,...

    First edition of the first harmonised Psalter...

    £1850

  7. [MENESTRIER, Claude François.]

    Des representations en musique anciennes...

    Paris, René Guignard, 1681.

    First edition. A Jesuit professor at Lyons...

    £600

  8. FREZZA DALLE GROTTE, Gioseppe.

    Il Cantore ecclesiastico breve, facile,...

    Padua, Stamperia del Seminario (Giovanni...

    First edition of an uncommon plainchant...

    £1250

  9. FABRIZI, Pietro.

    Regole generali di canto fermo raccolte...

    Rome, Mascardi, 1708.

    ‘Fourth’ edition of a small practical...

    £500

  10. D’URFEY, Thomas.

    Wit and Mirth: or Pills to purge Melancholy;...

    Pearson for J. Tonson, 1719 [– 1720].

    The first complete edition, second issue...

    £2250

  11. COLLIN DE BLAMONT, François.

    Les festes grecques et romaines, ballet...

    Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Christophe Ballard, 1723.

    First edition of the first ‘Ballet-héroïque’,...

    £3500

  12. [PREDIERI, Luca Antonio, composer; Apostolo ZENO, librettist.]

    La tirannide vendicata, drama per musica,...

    Pesaro, Gavelli, 1726.

    First edition, very rare, of the libretto...

    £1250

  13. MALCOLM, Alexander.

    A Treatise of Musick, speculative, practical...

    London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram,...

    First London edition of the first history...

    £1100

  14. BLANKENBURG, Quirinus Gerbrandszoon van.

    Elementa musica of niew licht tot het welverstaan...

    The Hague, Laurens Berkoske, 1739.

    First edition, very scarce.

    £1500

  15. GRASSINEAU, James.

    A Musical Dictionary; being a Collection...

    … London: Printed for J. Wilcox … 1740.

    First edition, based largely on the Dictionnaire...

    £650

  16. [SCHOLZE, Johann Sigismund.]

    Sperontes singende Muse an der Pleisse...

    Leipzig, auf kosten der lüstigen Gesellschaft...

    Second edition of the first part, first...

    £4500

  17. GREENE, Maurice.

    Forty select Anthems in Score composed...

    London. J. Walsh, 1743.

    First edition. Greene was organist and...

    £850

  18. TANS’UR, William.

    The Royal Psalmodist compleat: or, the...

    [St Neots?,] Printed by the Author, 1750.

    Unrecorded edition of Tans’ur’s Royal...

    £850

  19. CLARI, Giovanni Carlo Maria.

    Manuscript score of a collection of six...

    Italy, mid-eighteenth century.

    A collection of secular madrigals for two...

    £1800

  20. [PRELLEUR, Peter.]

    The Compleat Tutor for the Harpsichord...

    London, Peter Thompson, musical instrument...

    First edition thus?, an abridgment of part...

    £1250