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. ZARLINO, Gioseffo.

    Le Istitutioni harmoniche … nelle quali;...

    Venice, [Pietro da Fino], 1558.

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

    £15000

  2. SCHUBERT, Franz, composer

    A fine contemporary volume of ten works...

    Vienna, 1821-1833. 

    A rare collection of Schubert Lieder...

    £7500

  3. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s...

    £6500

  4. [VOGEL, Johann Christoph.]

    Démophon.

    [France (probably Paris), c. 1787.]

    A contemporary scribal manuscript of Johann...

    £5250

  5. VERHEYEN, Pierre Emmanuel.

    Requiem mass in C minor.

    [Flanders, c. 1810.]

    A very grand unpublished Requiem mass in...

    £4750

  6. [SCHOLZE, Johann Sigismund.]

    Sperontes singende Muse an der Pleisse...

    Leipzig, auf kosten der lüstigen Gesellschaft...

    Second edition of the first part, first...

    £4500

  7. COLLIN DE BLAMONT, François.

    Les festes grecques et romaines, ballet...

    Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Christophe Ballard, 1723.

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

    £3500

  8. [ANTIPHONAL.]

    Antiphonal, with neumes, containing music...

    Southern Germany or Bohemia, mid-fifteenth...

    An unusual and striking antiphonal leaf...

    £3500

  9. [PLAYING CARDS.]

    Cartes Magiques Musicales. 1001 Danses...

    Paris, Bass, c. 1830.

    The complete Piquet deck of these rare...

    £3000

  10. [ADOLPHUS, Prince, later Duke of Cambridge.]

    Manuscript collection of fifty-four songs...

    [Hanover?, 1796.]

    The seventh son of George III and Queen...

    £2850

  11. RIDOLFI, Luca Antonio. 

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

    Lyons, Guillaume Rouillé, 1562. 

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

    £2800

  12. ARISTIDES, Aelius.

    Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine...

    Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.

    First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy...

    £2750

  13. MILHAUD, Darius.

    Le boeuf sur le toit, ou The nothing doing...

    Paris, Editions de la Sirène, 1920.

    First edition of Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur...

    £2400

  14. [CHANSONS.]

    Manuscript collection of arias, chansons,...

    [France (Nantes?), c. 1795.]

    A fascinating manuscript collection of...

    £2400

  15. CAVALCANTI, Bartolomeo. 

    La retorica … divisa in sette libri,...

    Venice, Gabriel Giolitto, 1559. 

    Second edition, published in the same year...

    £2250

  16. D’URFEY, Thomas.

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

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

    The first complete edition, second issue...

    £2250

  17. GOUNOD, Charles François.

    A volume of ten songs bound together, all...

    London, 1870–3.

    Ten of Gounod’s London-published songs,...

    £2000

  18. 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

  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. ESSER, [Karl?] Michael, Ritter von.

    Sei Quartetti per due violini viola, e...

    [Venice, Marescalchi e Canobbio, 1774?]

    First edition, very rare, of a complete...

    £1750