Previously unknown Froberger manuscript up for auction
A major 17th-century manuscript by Johann Jacob Froberger, the foremost German keyboard composer of his day, is to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London on November 30. The estimated price is £300,000-£500,000.
The previously unrecorded autograph manuscript contains 35 pieces of keyboard music by Froberger (1616-67), none of which is known to exist in autograph anywhere else. Eighteen were previously entirely unknown, and of the other 17 there are differences between the autograph versions and the previously known copies.
According to Dr Simon Maguire, Sotheby's music manuscript specialist: "We have no record of an autograph manuscript by an earlier major composer appearing at auction and the discovery of this extraordinary volume will open up all sorts of new questions about Froberger, as well as resolving points about the music already known. The 18 new pieces, which amount to over 180 pages of new music and increase the composer's canon of known works by about a fifth, are examples of his hitherto unknown 'final period' and will occupy musical scholarship for years to come. Its discovery will change the history of 17th-century music."
Born in Stuttgart, Froberger moved to Vienna in the mid-1630s, becoming a court organist. An influence on JS Bach, his music was also known to Mozart.
Autograph music by 17th-century composers is rare – there is, for instance, no autograph music by Monteverdi. Sotheby's believes that "no comparable 17th-century autograph music manuscript has appeared for sale at auction in living memory" with the single exception of the 22-page autograph of keyboard music by Henry Purcell, which it sold in 1994 for £276,500.
The manuscipt will be on view in New York until November 17, and in London from November 27 to 29.
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| Detail from the Froberger manuscript (Image: Sotheby's) |
The previously unrecorded autograph manuscript contains 35 pieces of keyboard music by Froberger (1616-67), none of which is known to exist in autograph anywhere else. Eighteen were previously entirely unknown, and of the other 17 there are differences between the autograph versions and the previously known copies.
According to Dr Simon Maguire, Sotheby's music manuscript specialist: "We have no record of an autograph manuscript by an earlier major composer appearing at auction and the discovery of this extraordinary volume will open up all sorts of new questions about Froberger, as well as resolving points about the music already known. The 18 new pieces, which amount to over 180 pages of new music and increase the composer's canon of known works by about a fifth, are examples of his hitherto unknown 'final period' and will occupy musical scholarship for years to come. Its discovery will change the history of 17th-century music."
Born in Stuttgart, Froberger moved to Vienna in the mid-1630s, becoming a court organist. An influence on JS Bach, his music was also known to Mozart.
Autograph music by 17th-century composers is rare – there is, for instance, no autograph music by Monteverdi. Sotheby's believes that "no comparable 17th-century autograph music manuscript has appeared for sale at auction in living memory" with the single exception of the 22-page autograph of keyboard music by Henry Purcell, which it sold in 1994 for £276,500.
The manuscipt will be on view in New York until November 17, and in London from November 27 to 29.
posted by Michele | 1:54 PM
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