Music, Performing artsThere are 59 items
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Sommare beschrijuinghe vande triumphelijcke Incomst vanden doorluchtighen ende hooghgheboren Aerts-hertoge Matthias binnen die Princelijcke stadt van Brussele, in t’iaer ons Heeren M.D.LXXVIII. den xviij dach Januarij
Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1579A lavishly illustrated description of the triumphal entry into Brussels on 18 January 1578, of Archduke Matthias of Austria (1557-1616), brother of the Emperor Rudolph, to take his oaths as Governor-General of The Netherlands, and of festivities during the days following. Our copy was bound for Ferdinand Hoffmann, baron of Grünpühel and Strechau (1540-1607), whose library comprised at his death more than ten thousand volumes, the modern acquisitions ordinarily bound in green-stained vellum, as here.
Bound with Houwaert, Johan Baptista. Oratie der Ambassadeuren vanden doorluchtighen Prince Matthias Aertshertoge van Oostenrijcke… Verhaelt inden Rijckxdach gehouden tot Wormes, voor die Raetsheeren ghedeputeert by die Princen Electeurs, ende ander Ambassadeurs ende Ghecommitteerde van t'heylich Roomsche Rijcke… Rhetorijckelicke in ons Nederlantsche tale ouerghestelt, door Jean Baptista Houwaert. Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1578
Also in the volume is a verse translation by Houwaert of the famous speech delivered (in Latin) on 7 May 1578, by Philippe de Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde (1540-1598), before a delegation of the Diet (Reichstag) of Worms, a fruitless appeal to gain the German princes to the cause of the States-General against the Spanish. Of this work, only five other copies are known.
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Il bacio fauola pastorale. Rappresentata al Serenissimo Prencipe di Venetia. Marino Grimani. l’ultimo di Maggio 1601
Venice, Stampata per il Rampazetto, 1601The libretto of an anonymous pastoral entertainment with musical accompaniment, staged in the Palazzo Ducale before Marino Grimani, the reigning Doge of Venice. -
L’Arianna tragedia… rappresentata in musica nelle Reali Nozze del Sereniss. Principe di Mantova, e della Serenissima Infanta di Savoia
Mantua, Heirs of Francesco Osanna, 1608The libretto of Arianna, set to music by Monteverdi (his second opera), and performed on 28 May 1608 in the Sala degli Specchi in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, as the first entertainment of extravagant festivities there celebrating the marriage of the heir-apparent, Francesco IV Gonzaga, to Margherita of Savoy. This first edition, printed “Presso gli Heredi di Francesco Osanna Stampator Ducale”, may have been distributed before the performance, functioning as advertising for it and as an aid to following the action on stage. Only two copies can be traced in North American libraries ● Chicago, Newberry Library ● Washington, DC, Library of Congress. No other copy has appeared in the auction salerooms for at least fifty years, and the book is thus absent in several of the expected repositories (including British Library, Pierpont Morgan Library, and New York Public Library). -
Ballo delle Zingare, rapresentato in Firenze nel teatro dell’Altezza Serenissima di Toscana nel carnouale dell’anno 1614
Florence, Zanobi Pignoni, 1614The Ballo delle Zingare (Dance of the Gypsies) was a costumed festa da ballo performed on 24 February 1614 (stile fiorentino) in the Salone delle Commedie of the Palazzo Pitti for the entertainment of Grand Duke Cosimo II and his wife Maria Maddalena d’Austria. The occasion was the marriage of Maddalena’s lady-in-waiting, Sofia “Todesca” Binestan, to Cavaliere Cosimo da Castiglione, “provveditore di Livorno”. The singer-composer Francesca Caccini (1587-after 1641) composed music (now lost) to Saracinelli’s text and Agnolo Ricci’s choreography, and Giulio Parigi designed the sets. -
Descrizione della battaglia del Ponte. Frà Abido, e Sesto nell’Hellesponto. Festa rappresentata in Arno, il dì 25. di Luglio 1618
Florence, Zanobi Pignoni, 1618Libretto of the entertainment “La Battaglia del Ponte” performed on the Arno River during celebration of the Feast of Saint James, on 25 July 1618. The designer of the festival machinery was Giulio Parigi, designer also of floats built for Ferdinando Saracinelli’s “Arrivo d’Amore in Toscana” enacted on the same feast day in 1615, and for Andrea Salvadori’s “Battaglia tra tessitori e tintori” performed in 1619 (those floats are documented in prints by Jacques Callot). Regrettably, no visual documentation survives of Parigi’s apparati for “La Battaglia del Ponte”.
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Le Fonti d’Ardenna festa d’arme, e di ballo; fatta in Firenze da dodici Signori Accademici Rugginosi il carneuale dell’anno 1623. Nel principato del Sig. Alessandro del Nero. Inuenzione del Sig. Andrea Saluadori. Descritta dal Rugginoso Percosso
Florence, Pietro Cecconcelli, 1623Description of ‘The fountains of the Ardennes’, an entertainment (tournament on horseback and dance) performed by the Accademici Rugginosi in the Palazzo della Gherardesca (Casa Rinaldi), on 3 February 1622. The librettist was Andrea Salvadori, from 1616 to 1628 the principal author of texts for theatrical entertainments at the Florence court. Music for the spectacle (now lost) was composed by Marco da Gagliano and scenery designed by Giulio Parigi. -
L’Ermiona del S.r Marchese Pio Enea Obizzi. Per introduzione d’vn Torneo à piedi, & à cavallo e d’vn Balletto rappresentato in Musica nella Citta di Padoua l’Anno M DCXXXVI dedicata al Sereniss.o Prencipe di Venetia Francesco Erizo descritta dal S. Nicolò Enea Bartolini, Gentilhuomo, & Academ.o Senese
Padua, Paolo Frambotto, 1638The illustrated libretto of an opera performed in Padua on 11 April 1636 by a travelling company of “mercenarii musici”, as the prelude to a tournament in the Cavallerizza di Prato della Valle of which Obizzi was the promoter. A prose description of the horse ballet and tournament by Nicolò Enea Bartolini is interspersed throughout Obizzi’s verse libretto; the music, by the Roman composer Giovanni Felice Sances, was not printed. Unlike previous operas, L’Ermiona was not commissioned to celebrate a special occasion, nor was it performed before an audience exclusively made-up of the nobility. The architect and stage designer Alfonso Rivarola (called “Il Chenda”) set up a temporary wooden theatre with five vertical tiers of separated boxes accessed from the rear by corridors and common staircases. It is the first major Italian box theatre on record and had immediate influence, guiding the design of the new Teatro San Cassiano, the first public opera stage in Venice, where a year later the modern tradition of commercial opera was inaugurated. Fifteen folding engraved plates reproduce Rivarola’s settings and stage machinery. -
Sieg-Streit deß Lufft und Wassers Freuden-Fest zu Pferd zu dem Glorwürdigisten Beyläger Beeder Kayserlichen Majestäten Leopoldi deß Ersten Römischen Kaysers. und Margarita, Gebohrner Königlichen Infantin auß Hispanien dargestellet in dero Kayserlichen Residentz Statt Wienn
Vienna, Matthäus Cosmerovius, 1667A description (with libretto interspersed) of one of the most magnificent of Hapsburg court entertainments, a balletto à cavallo performed on 24 and 31 January 1667 in the inner court square (Innerer Burghof) in Vienna, to celebrate the marriage of the Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705) to the Spanish Infanta Margarita Teresa (1651-1673). The spectacle, involving around a thousand luxuriously dressed actors and two hundred musicians, was created and produced by the Florentine impresario Alessandro Carducci, aided by Carlo Pasetti of Ferrara, who designed theatrical machinery and scenes. “For centuries… [it] has been considered the greatest horse ballet in history” (International Encyclopedia of the Dance).Bound with Schmelzer, Johann Heinrich (circa 1620/1623-1680). Arie per il balletto à cavallo, nella festa rappresentata per le gloriosissime nozze delle SS. CC. MM.tà di Leopoldo Primo, Imperatore Augustissimo, et di Margherita Infanta di Spagna. Vienna, Matthäus Cosmerovin, 1667
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Der Schwätzer und der Leichtgläubige eine Pantomime [Latin text in a parallel column, beginning] Susurro cum nimis Credulo ludus pantomimicus
Augsburg & Vienna, Kaiserlich-Privilegierte Franziskische Reichsakademie Freier Künste und Wissenschaften, 1764 (27 Horning [February])A suite of twelve prints illustrating scenes in the pantomime “Der Schwätzer der Leichtgläubige”, a carnival entertainment performed in the small auditorium (Aula minor) of Salzburg University, on 27 February 1764. The pantomime was enacted during an intermission of the tragedy “Pietas in patriam” and is dedicated by its author, Florian Reichssiegel, to Prince-Archbishop Siegmund Christoph von Schrattenbach. The principal characters are the clowns Harlequin, Hanswurst, and Pierrot; a synopsis of the action (in Latin and German) appears beneath each print. The scenes were drawn by the Salzburg stage designer Matthias Siller (1710-1790) for the Augsburg printmakers Philip Andreas Degmair (1711-1783) and Johann Philip Haid (1730-1806). The title and prints 2, 8, [10] are mezzotints; prints 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12 are line engravings. Joined to our suite are duplicate impressions of plates 4 and 5 (both with contemporary hand-colouring). -
L’arrivo d’Enea nel Lazio componimento drammatico in decorazione di una mostra di esercizi cavallereschi dall’Istituto de’Nobili presentata alle loro altezze reali il Serenissimo Arciduca Pietro Leopoldo d’Austria Granduca di Toscana ec ec ec e la Serenissima Infanta Maria Luisa di Borbone Granduchessa sua sposa ec ec ec nella faustissima occasione della loro venuta in Firenze ed eseguita nel Teatro dell’Accademia degl’ Immobili la sera de’ 15 novembre MDCCLXV
Florence, Francesco Moücke, [1765]The libretto of an entertainment (cantata by Baldassare Galuppi) performed in the Teatro della Pergola on 15 November 1765 before the new Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo and his consort Maria Luisa. -
Prologo fatto già in occasione del futuro felice parto di S.A.R. Maria Luisa Arciduchessa d’Austria nata Infanta di Spagna Granduchessa di Toscana ec. ec. ec. da rappresentarsi in Firenze nella prima sera che la prefata A.S.R. onora colla sua presenza il Teatro di Via della Pergola
Florence, Stamperia Granducale, 1767The libretto of a solo cantata performed in the Teatro della Pergola on 22 February 1767, in celebration of the birth of Maria Teresa, the first born of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo and Maria Luisa di Borbone. The Grand Duke had invited the Viennese composer Christoph Willibald Gluck to set the text. Gluck arrived in Florence on February 1st, received the text from Del Rosso on the 6th, rehearsed on the 21st, and conducted both the Prologo and Marco Coltellini’s “Ifigenia in Tauride” (music by Tommaso Traetta) the next day. Six copies are recorded (all in Italian libraries). -
Flore et Zephyr Ballet mythologique Dedié à [vignette of Marie Taglioni as Flore] par Théophile Wagstaff [pseudonym of Thackeray; this title printed on wrapper cover]
London & Paris, [printed by Graf & Soret] for John Mitchell & Rittner & Goupil, 1836Only edition of Thackeray’s first publication, a volume of caricatures of a ballet divertissement in two acts performed during April and May 1833 in the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, London, with the celebrated Marie Taglioni dancing the rôle of Flore and her partner of that year, Monsieur Albert (François Decombe), that of Zéphyr. A modern critic describes it as “a work of no small consequence”, which “establishes precedents and suggests patterns for most of Thackeray’s later major works” (Selma A. Muresianu). -
A poster of Ruth St. Denis, in her “Nautch Dance”, attributed to Will Bradley
[New York?], 1910Printed on two sheets in black on buff paper, dimensions overall 141.6 × 108.1 cm.A very large, unrecorded art poster of the American dancer Ruth (Emma Dennis) St. Denis (1877-1968), most probably created to publicise her “American Tour of East Indian Dances” (November 1909-April 1910), or else her “Coast-to-Coast Tour” (December 1910-May 1911). It is based on a photograph in a book designed by William Henry Bradley (1868-1962), The American stage of to-day: biographies and photographs of one hundred leading actors and actresses (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1910), and possibly was commissioned from Bradley by the theatrical producer Charles Frohman, organiser of the dancer’s tours. Bradley, the foremost American poster designer of the Art Nouveau movement, had worked for Frohman in 1894 (”The Masqueraders”, New Empire Theatre, New York); further evidence of the artist’s work for the stage has yet to come to light.
Our poster was once in the collection of the choreographer Jack Cole, who in 1930 joined Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and spent time learning and performing the repertory of the Denishawn troupe (Sotheby’s, Catalogue of the Jack Cole Collection of Books and Pictures on the Dance, Part II, London, 12 November 1979, lot 82). There was no example of the poster in the collection of memorabilia gifted by Ruth St. Denis to the Museum of Modern Art in 1940 (since transferred to the New York Public Library), or among the material sold by her to the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1966-1968.
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Catalogue of very important illuminated manuscripts and printed books selected from the renowned library formed by Baron Horace de Landau (1824-1903), maintained and augmented by his niece Madame Finaly, of Florence (d. 1938) and now sold in accordance with the terms of her will and on the instructions of her heirs, the present owners § The second portion: the famous musical collection § The third portion (catalogues of selections from the Landau-Finaly library, sold in London, by Sotheby & Co., 12 July 1948-31 October 1949)
London, Sotheby & Co., 1948-1949Three parts in one volume (25 cm), I (12-13 July 1948): 82 (6) pp., frontispiece, 50 plates (pls.I-L, some folding), text illustrations. Lots numbered 1-129. Errata and Addenda sheet tipped in. II (17-18 October 1949): pp. (2) 87-157 (1), 22 leaves of plates (pls.I-XXII), text illustrations. Lots numbered 130-446. III: (31 October 1949): pp. (2) 161-185 (1), [6] plates, text illustrations. Lots numbered 447-589. Lists of prices and buyers’ names are bound in (list for First portion in photocopy). Morocco-backed boards, a collector’s binding (original upper wrappers bound in). - The first post-War sale in Britain of a foreign library. The most important of the printed books was (lot 23) the 1462 Mainz Bible on vellum (acquired by Baron Landau for £400 at the Firmin-Didot sale in Paris, 12 June 1882), which sold to Quaritch for £15,400. To commemorate the sale, Sotheby’s reprinted Part I (only) on fine paper, with buyers’ names and prices printed in red in the margins (edition limited to 100 copies). ¶ Occasional pencil annotation. Attractive copy. -
Sixteenth & seventeenth century theatre design in Paris : an exhibition of drawings from the National Museum of Stockholm with models from the Theatre Museum, Drottningholm (catalogue of an exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain, held in the Arts Council Gallery, London, 27 October-28 November 1956)
London, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1956(22 cm), 43 (1) pp., [8] p. of plates. Publisher’s pictorial wrappers. - Exhibition of drawings from the collections of the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, by some fifteen Italian and French artists, including Primaticcio, Bérain and his studio, d’Olivet, Henry Gissey, and Carlo Vigarini. Two scale models of the Charles XII Theatre at the King’s House, Stockholm, and of the Palace Theatre, Drottningholm, also were exhibited. ¶ Very good, unmarked copy. -
Degli "evirati cantori" : Contributo alla storia del teatro (Biblioteca degli eruditi e dei bibliofili, 36)
Florence, Sansoni, 1959(25.5 cm), 76 (2) pp., 10 illustrations. Publisher’s printed wrappers. - Account of the castrati as a professional group. ¶ Edition limited to 333 copies (300 in commerce), of which this is No. 177. Very good, unmarked copy. -
Giacomo Torelli and Baroque stage design (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Figura, Nova Series, 2)
Stockholm, Almquist & Wiksell, 1961(26.5 cm), 270 (2) pp., numerous illustrations. Publisher’s printed wrappers. - Includes a useful chronological list of illustrated libretti published by Torelli 1641-1677, stating the number of plates in each and their engravers. ¶ Short tears in wrapper along joints; otherwise a very good, unmarked copy. Loosely inserted is an Invitation to public disputation, 18 March 1961 (this was the author’s dissertation, Faculty of Arts, University of Uppsala). -
La Vie théâtrale au temps de la Renaissance (catalogue of an exhibition held at the Institut Pédagogique National, Paris, March-May 1963)
Paris, Institut Pédagogique National, 1963(21 cm), xviii, 235 (3) pp., 16 plates. 460 catalogue entries. Addenda et Corrigenda slip loosely inserted. Publisher’s printed wrappers. - Catalogue of an exhibition of paintings, drawings, books, prints, and objects, held at Royaumont in conjunction with an international colloquium (Des Sciences Humaines sur “Le Lieu théâtrale à la Renaissance”). ¶ Very good, unmarked copy. -
Handbook to the Department of Prints and Drawings and Paintings
London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1964(24.5 cm), viii, 116 pp. Publisher’s printed wrappers. - Useful discussions of the Museum’s collections of architectural drawings (by John Physick), engraved ornament (by Peter Ward-Jackson), cuttings from illuminated manuscripts (by C.M. Kauffmann), etc. ¶ Fine, unmarked copy. -
Le Lieu Théâtral a la Renaissance (Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Sciences Humaines, Royaumont, 22-27 March 1963)
Paris, Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique, 1964(27.5 cm), x (2), 532 (2) pp., 68 plates. Publisher’s decorated cloth. - Collection of 32 essays, by T.E. Lawrenson and Helen Purkis (Les éditions illustrées de Térence dans l’histoire du théatre: spectacles dans un fauteuil?), Irving Lavin (Lettres de Parme 1618, 1627-28 et débuts du théâtre baroque), Carlo Pedretti (Dessins d’une scene, exécutés par Leonard de Vinci pour Charles d’Amboise), Kate Steinitz (Le Dessin de Leonard de Vinci pour la représentation de la “Danae” de Baldassare Taccone), among others. Five essays deal with English theatres and stages. First edition. ¶ Excellent, unmarked copy.
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