MUSIC

Page detached from album, some wear and tear but no losses, which contained numerous autographs provided at performances in Stoke mainly in the 1920s. One side of the leaf has the signatures of Agnes Nicholls Harty, Hamilton Harty, an illegible, and Frank Mullings, while overleaf are the signatures of John Booth, Margaret Balfour and Andrew Clayton.

Printed Programme, 4pp., 8vo, blue, not bound, staining on fold marks, mainly good condition. Elena Danieli has signed top left of front cover. It gives the Programme of music with performers and a list of President and Vice-Presidents of the Choir..

Page of album, 17 x 14, good condition, signed as follows: Souvenir from | Luisa Tetrazzini | Stoke on Trent 9th Dec. 1921 [underlined]. On the same page, the signature Ivor Newton [pianist] who accompanied her.

For more information about Stephen Manton Bradbury, or Stephen Manton as he was known professionally, see his obituary in The Times, 8 September 1970. The collection is in good condition, on aged paper. The correspondence from various figures in various BBC music departments, both London and regional, and in a variety of formats from 4to down to 12mo, breaks down to the following number of items per year: 1944, 8; 1945, 5; 1946, 30; 1947, 34; 1948, 32; 1949, 22; 1950, 11; 1951, 15; 1952, 1.

12mo, 2 pp. 15 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Having failed to 'catch' lister after 'our practice', Hullah asks if he would be willing to 'take part in a private performance here of Haydn's Stabat Mater'. Gives details of dates of proposed performance, and rehearsal.

12mo, 1 p. 10 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. The recipient 'had better be in Town for the Choral Meeting on the 4th. June'. Gives details of when the recipient will 'generally find' Hullah there.

Oval sepia photograph of the head and shoulders of Hullah, looking to his right in double-breasted jacket. Faded and on aged card, with traces of mount adhering to reverse. The sitter - who by comparison with other photographs is definitely Hullah - is named as 'JOHN HULLAH' in a contemporary hand on the card beneath the laid-down photograph, and as 'Mr Hullah' in pencil on the reverse. Not present in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, which only holds three images of the composer.

Both engravings 8vo. Both by W. & J. Walker, from drawings by J. Dixon. Both impressively detailed, with that of the Royal Box showing crowds of fashionable people in the foreground. Both engravings are clear an complete, but with creasing from folding into the European Magazine. Both a little grubby, an with wear to the margins. The engraving of the organ has a strip of backing along the left-hand margin, and that of the royal box is mounted in a paper windowpane.

12mo, 2 pp. Bifolium. 12 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He would 'much like' to show him a song he has written for 'Exeter Hall', and proposes dinner the following day. In a postscript asks if he has 'learnt anything about R. J. S. Stevens'.

12mo, 1 p. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He is sending 'a few lines to Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, about the Bach Choir'.

12mo, 2 pp. Bifolium. 17 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Begins 'I cannot help thinking your request a very unreasonable one. You have, in the first instance, monopolized, for the best part of the season, my Room, on the night when it is most in request; & now that every body has fully laid out his plans for this side off the autumn you call upon me to release you from an engagement [...]'. He will not force the recipient to occupy the room 'longer than the six nights', but will not keep 'the engagement' open for him at Christmas.

4to, 4 pp. Bifolium. 87 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, with wear to extremities and a spike hole to one corner. Written in ink in a Victorian hand, and with three changes in pencil. Docketed at head 'The art of Vocalization'. Towards beginning writes that the subject is one which he has 'studied many years in close connexion with the most eminent Masters of Italy, most of whom I may rank among my personal friends, and the pith of whose conversations, added to my own experience I propose embodying in a few short essays upon the Formation of the Voice'.

12mo, 4 pp. Bifolium. 48 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Attached, in a windowpane, to a leaf detached from an autograph album. He 'fell in, at Newport, in South Wales, with a youth of extraordinary ability as a player on the Harp - not the Welsh, but the Gothic instrument'. Although the youth, named 'Pollock', is 'Harpist to Lady Morgan', his income 'is scanty and fluctuating'. Exclaims 'What is to be done, Sir George!

On a rectangle of paper cut from the bottom of a letter. Fair, on aged and creased paper. Reads 'We are | Sir | Yours obediently | [signed] Adelina Patti | Carlotta Patty [sic]'.

12mo, 8 pp. Fair, on aged laid paper. On four leaves removed from a pocket book, with two leaves numbered in manuscript '41' and '42'. Apparently a first-person draft of information for an appeal by the oldest surviving member (from the inception of the group) for a stipend. Begins 'Depuis le commencement de l'an 1760 que j'ai ete recu a la Musique du Roi, j'ai été en exercice jusqu'en 1792, avec 222. sujets qui s'y sous dont 40 vivant encore au 18 Janvier 1815. [...]'.

The German-born Richter (1860-1929) studied under Liszt, Haupt, Lebert, Mischalek, Oskar and Joachim, the last of whose protégé he became. He came to England in the 1880s, and was based from 1887 in Leicester, where he founded the Leicester and County College of Music, and where 'Herr Richter's Chamber Concerts' went through at least eighteen annual series. As a pianist he was widely praised for his 'fine technique and temperament' (The Times) and 'real musicianship (Westminster Gazette).

Studio portrait photograph on postcard, captioned 'RENA HALL | MUSICAL SPECIALITIES'. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. Depicts Hall in highland costume with bagpipe under her arm and an accordion on a plinth. Inscribed 'To dear Rubye | In memory of Happy days | Love, Rena | 1937'. 'Laddie Cliff and Rena Hall' performed in front of George V and Queen Mary at the Royal Variety Performance, Coliseum Theatre, London, 1923. From the Colleano Family archives.

4to, 3 pp. Loose leaf inserted in bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Front page printed in black and red. Advertisements on reverse of last leaf.

4to, [i] + 4 pp. On two loose bifoliums, in tan printed wraps. No. 73 of 110 copies (one of the hundred numbered copies and NOT one of the ten copies signed by author and composer). Limitation inside front wrap. Title-page states 'This arrangement is dedicated by the composer to the Berkshire School Musicale Association'. No copy on COPAC.

4to, 4 pp. Bifolium. In light-grey printed wraps with design by Lieberman printed in dark-grey and pink (price on front amended with stamp). Score on central two pages. Last page carries an advertisement for another of Bowles's piano pieces, and a short biographical notice, headed 'ABOUT THE COMPOSER' ('[...] He is best known as composer of music for the theatre. In this medium he has written incidental scores for the two Orson Welles productions: [...] Mr. Bowles has also done several film scores, and the music for two ballets commissioned by the American Ballet Caravan: [...]').

4to, 3 pp (paginated 3-7). Bifolium loose in grey wraps printed in red. Good, on lightly-aged paper with slight wear to spine.

4to, 12 pp. On six loose bifoliums. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with minor spotting on reverse of last leaf (page of advertisements).

4to, 13 + [i] pp. On four loose bifoliums. On aged paper with small closed tears to spine and last leaf repaired with archival tape.

4to, 1 p. Text clear and complete. On aged and creased paper. He is returning the score, and asks Hedgely to 'copy the three voice parts of the two canons Criste Eleison & Crucifixus & the Voice part of the Soprano Song, Gratias Agimus', and to send the whole back 'as soon as you can finish them'.

Both letters are tipped in on a captioned sheet removed from an autograph album. Both items lightly-aged, but good. Item One: 12mo, 1 p. Inviting him to 'a small dance for Hubie' at a location 'lent by Miss Constable'. 'You need not dance!' Item two: 12mo, 1 p. Asking him to 'come fairly early' the next day, and to 'stay on after the children have gone & have supper - of a sort'. Refers to 'H's party'.

12mo, 2pp. On bifolium. Aged and grubby. Testimony to the popularity of the black and white minstrel genre, at an early date. The drawing, beside the letterhead, is approximately 3.5 x 5 cm, in black and red. On the soles of the banjo-player's shoes is 'S M | 1908', and beneath it the caption 'Lessons'. Gives dates and times of lessons to 'Rackham', 'Miss Tipper', 'Matthias', 'Clayson', 'Mauchel' and others.

For more information relating to this influential series of concerts, see 'Pursuit: The Uncensored Memoirs of John Calder' (2001). Seven items, including two duplicates. Text of all items clear and complete. In fair condition, but with one side of a duplicate advertisement heavily sunned (see below). ONE: Typed Letter Signed ('Ian Hamilton') from Hamilton to Conn (husband of the poet Jeanne Conn), 12 February 1960. 4to, 1 p. Eighteen lines. Responding to Conn's criticisms, explaining reasons for cutting short discussion and cancelling part of the programme, and giving future plans.

On one side of a piece of wove paper, roughly 400 x 250 mm. Dimensions of engraving roughly 130 x 180 mm. Good, on heavily-foxed and lightly-creased paper. The sketch shows a well-dressed flautist playing his instrument in a market square, with money, clothes and food drawn to him from onlookers as if by magnetism. Beneath the print, in a variety of types and point sizes: 'Speedily will be Published, Inscribed to all Lovers of Tweedledum Tweedle, The Art of Playing upon People: or, Memoirs of the German Flute. Interspersed with The Character of Baron Steeple; [...]'.

Following the singer's death in 1959 Johnny C. Beecher relaunched Holly's official English fan club, helping to keep his reputation alive at a time when he was practically forgotten in America. As Beecher stated in an interview, he kept 'in touch with Buddy's parents, Ella and L.O., and I can say that without them it wouldn't have been possible, as they sent us all sorts of information and photographs that kept up our enthusiasm. The Crickets also helped out and were pretty nice considering all we ever asked 'em was, "What was Buddy really like." Despite that, we became pals.

On page extracted from an album of inscriptions with photographs by composers, actors, etc. Good condition. Inscribed by Strauss as follows: "Herr?] Harry Woord Wolling / Richard Strauss / Wien 15.12.23". The signature is bold. Scan provided on request.