Musical Scores

First edition of this song for voice and piano, with a colour-illustrated front cover in a geometric Art Deco style by Roger de Milos. A very fine copy.

First edition of this piano score, with the front cover colour-illustrated by an unidentified artist with two stylised, caricatural children’s heads. An attractive copy despite the front cover being partly detached.

First edition of this waltz for piano, with the upper wrapper illustrated in colour by the Clérice Frères studio, at that time most probably the work of Victor Clérice alone, the last representative of this dynasty of Montmartre poster artists.

A fine copy.

First French edition of this score for voice and piano, the upper wrapper colour-illustrated by Roger de Valério (1886-1951), then the exclusive cover artist for Éditions Salabert. A fine copy.

First edition of the French adaptation of this song for voice and piano, the front cover illustrated with a large two-colour composition signed by Paul Colin.

The song originated as a Viennese schlager in 1929, with music by Karl M. May and lyrics by Charles Amberg, published in Berlin by Karl Brüll. It was adapted into French the following year by André Mauprey and Louis Lemarchand for the revue Un Coup de folie, first performed at the Folies-Bergère in 1930.

A very fine copy.

First edition of this exceptionally rare complete set of twelve dance scores, each comprising a color-printed wrapper and five leaves (title page, four numbered pages of engraved music, and one blank leaf). All covers were lithographed and hand-colored using stencil techniques by Adolphe Cathelin, whose name appears on the title pages.

The musical works are by composers Alexandre Croisez, Alexandre Artus, Eugène Dupuis, Camille Michel, Alphonse Leduc, Émile Waldteufel, Voctir-Auguste Dolmetsch, Félix Joufferoy, and Antony Lamotte.

Contemporary half green calf binding, smooth spine decorated with gilt and blind-stamped fillets and dotted lines, joints rubbed; granite-patterned...

For the first three volumes, first edition, complete with all 84 parts published between February 1842 and October 1843 of this "admirable publication printed on thick vellum paper [...] one of the finest of the 19th century, justly esteemed and comparable to the beautifully illustrated books of the 18th century" (Carteret), (see Carteret III, 143–153; Vicaire II, 234–248).

The first three volumes are bound in full violet morocco, spines with five raised bands bordered with gilt pointillé tooling, compartments richly gilt with double gilt frames, gilt rolls on caps, covers framed with quintuple gilt fillets, gilt monogram MG at the corners, comb-marbled endpapers and...

First edition of the vocal and piano score of the opera Déjanire by Camille Saint-Saëns.

A few pencil annotations in the margins of certain staves.

Our copy is presented in a 3/4 shagreen clamshell box, spine with five raised bands framed by gilt garlands and decorated with gilt fleurons, gilt lettering at foot of spine: "Inscribed by composer". Boards, endpapers and pastedowns in marbled paper. Spine of the box slightly faded.

Inscribed, dated and signed by Camille Saint-Saëns to music critic Edouard Beaudu.

1825 edition, here lacking its title page, in which the celebrated lyricist claimed for the first time, explicitly and in writing, to be the sole composer of La Marseillaise, that is, the author of both the music and the words. He would make this claim on only one other occasion, in a letter of 5 January 1829 to M. Beuchot. In its early years, France's national anthem was the subject of a genuine controversy over its authorship, particularly regarding the musical composition, that would persist long after 1825, notwithstanding the declarations contained in this edition. Hector...

Unpublished and signed autograph score by Camille Saint-Saëns. Two pages of handwritten music for solo voice and piano, on an oblong bifolium with twenty staves. Autograph inscription on the first page signed by Saint-Saëns, with his signature and date ("Nov. 1870") appearing again on the second page.
Trace of vertical fold, with a tiny tear along the fold, a small marginal tear on 1 cm of the first page, without damage to the manuscript.

An exceptional unpublished autograph manuscript of a Persian melody for voice and piano, composed by Camille Saint-Saëns during the Siege of Paris in November 1870, enriched with a autograph inscription: 'A...

First edition. A title-frontispiece by Du Roy. Title pages in red and black. 7 pages of musical score. A title-frontispiece for the Suitte de la chaire des curez.

Contemporary full vellum binding. Smooth unlettered spine. Spine stitching loosened, causing the quires to protrude. Soiling. Scattered foxing. Dampstain to upper margin extending to around p. 200. Leaves 363 and 361 transposed. Leaves 13 to 49 of the second book, horizontal bookworm damage through the middle of the text, 3cm long, with loss of words, continuing on the last 20 leaves. Large pale yellow dampstain on the last 30 leaves of the second part. The stitching of the second part is very loose.
A...

Collection assembled by an anonymous hand of chromolithographs and engravings. Numerous pages with various frames, Gothic and ornamental, intended to receive engravings. Frontispiece in chromolithography heightened with colors. The papers intended to receive drawings, engravings or chromos are of various colors: blue, green, cream, pink. The collection ends with music sheets that have remained blank.

English publisher's binding in full burgundy shagreen. Smooth spine decorated with a large ornamental Romantic plaque. Boards with a central raised rectangle decorated with a large stamp with the inscription: Album orné, blind-stamped frame. Rich Renaissance frieze in...

One of the very few copies bearing an autograph inscription—fewer than ten are recorded—of this first edition, containing the Marseillaise.
First edition illustrated with an engraved frontispiece by Charles-Étienne Gaucher after Jean-Jacques Le Barbier and four pages of engraved musical score at the end of the volume. La Marseillaise appears here in its true first edition, having first been pre-published in the Almanach des Muses in 1793 and circulated as separate leaves.
Contemporary half-sheepskin binding, smooth spine gilt-decorated with compartments, fleurons and fillets, red morocco title-piece, black pasteboard...

The rare first edition of the two volumes published respectively in 1724 and 1726. It is illustrated with 2 head-piece vignettes, 8 pages of musical scores, a cabalistic tree printed separately, the Samaritan Alphabet, 2 plates of coins and 2 figures also printed separately.

Copy with arms stamped on the covers and within each compartment from the library of the Abbey of Saint-Victor. The Abbey of Saint-Victor was one of the oldest abbeys in Paris (on the site of the University of Jussieu and the Jardin des Plantes) and one of the great intellectual centers of the medieval West; its rich library was opened to the public in the 18th century with the addition of new buildings...

Second edition and first published by Cazin, with two volumes added; a first edition in 4 volumes was published in Geneva in 1782. Musical scores at the end of volumes. Only volumes 5 and 6 contain no musical score, the songs being sung to airs already noted in the other volumes, which are identified by the air numbers. 48pp. of musical scores in volume 1; 48pp. in volume 2; 38 in volume 3; 40 in volume 4.

Later brown half-sheep binding (1800). Smooth spine decorated with three fleurons and fillets. Red morocco title-label with roulettes. Red morocco volume label in a roundel. Marbled paper boards. Rubbing to headcaps and joints. Corners slightly bumped.