Tchaikovsky Autograph Music Manuscript of Mazepa Leads History of Western Music Auction

The History of Western Music: Manuscripts from the Schøyen Collection at Christie’s is an online-only sale which showcases the history of music with more than 150 lots from medieval notation to musical manuscripts, scores, drafts and composers’ letters spanning 1,200 years.

Open for bidding from 25 October to 8 November, the sale includes music by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Wagner, Dvořák, and Sibelius. The sale is led by an autograph music manuscript by Tchaikovsky presenting two substantial sections from the first version of the opera Mazepa. Rare at auction, the score represents one of only three substantial Tchaikovsky autographs to appear in the last 40 years (estimate: £70,000-100,000).

Representing one of the world’s greatest private collections of ancient manuscripts, The Schøyen Collection was established in the 1920s by M.O. Schøyen and contains over 20,000 significant manuscripts of major cultural importance and global provenance, from which the present lots are offered. The earliest lot within the sale, a leaf from the liturgical Office of St Remigius, in Latin, (France, circa late 9th/early 10th century) is among the earliest extant survivals of French Messine notation (estimate: £40,000-60,000) alongside a leaf from an Antiphonal, in Latin; a fascinating product of the Abbey of St Martial in Limoges, (circa 1030), arguably the most important scriptorium for the history and development of liturgical music in the Middle Ages (estimate: £5,000-8,000).

The sale also features works of Beneventan chant and notation, including a substantial fragment of a Beneventan Mass Book, in Latin, and the only known Beneventan Bari-type Sacramentary (estimate: £70,000-100,000). Also on offer is an important example of Romanesque script with early German neumes, a significant fragment of a 12th century Sacramentary (estimate: £15,000- 20,000).

Joseph Haydn is represented in the auction by an autograph music manuscript of performance parts for Symphony no. 90 in C major and the only autograph manuscript for a symphony by the father of the form to have appeared at international auction (estimate: £60,000-90,000).

The online sale will additionally offer a rare and unpublished autograph manuscript leaf from Ludwig van Beethoven’s conversation books which features the composer’s early ideas in the form of a sketch for the Cavatina of the String Quartet No 13, Op.130 (estimate: £50,000-80,000). Only one other leaf from Beethoven’s conversation books has appeared in the past 25 years.

A manuscript quotation of the opening of Boléro, one of the most frequently performed works in the classical canon, signed by Maurice Ravel, is also offered (estimate: £8,000-12,000). The auction will also offer the first edition of the full score of Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser opera. Of the hundred copies produced by Wagner, only 29 are now known, of which only six in private hands (estimate: £20,000-30,000).