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Lost Rachmaninov manuscript discovered |
October 27 2004 |
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The lost manuscript of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, an opulent, lushly melodic late-Romantic work and an undoubted highpoint of Rachmaninov's orchestral output, has been discovered. It is to be sold at Sotheby’s in London on December 7, and is expected to fetch £300,000-£500,000.
 | | Lost, found, and now for sale: Rachmaninov's Second Symphony (photo: Sotheby's) |
Completed in 1908, the score was presumed lost until it was discovered in the estate of a European private collector, who then approached Geoffrey Norris, music critic of The Daily Telegraph and author of a book about the composer. Norris recounts in today’s Telegraph how he travelled to meet the manuscript’s owner, who was bearing the score in a Co-op carrier bag, in a Swiss railway station.
Though the title page and first four pages of music are missing, Norris said it was recognisably authentic. ‘The handwriting, the paper and the manner in which Rachmaninov made corrections – are all as they should be,’ he wrote.
At 320 pages it is the longest autograph manuscript of any of Rachmaninov’s orchestral works. It contains many revisions made during 1907 and 1908 and is the only source which reveals the original orchestration (it is thought highly likely that Rachmaninov revised the orchestration in the light of the first two performances – both of which he conducted – in St Petersburg on January 26, 1908 and Moscow on February 2).
After the première, the score was used for the preparation of the first edition, which was published in August 1908. What happened to it after that remains unclear. It was not among the few manuscripts Rachmaninov took with him when he left Russia in 1917, and nor did it remain behind with his other papers, now stored in the Glinka museum in Moscow.
Dr Simon Maguire, Sotheby's music manuscript specialist, said: 'It is one of the most extraordinary discoveries in the world of symphonic music. There are no other surviving sources that give us any insight into the creation and evolution of Rachmaninov's symphony, making the discovery an event of great importance to all music-lovers.'
The manuscript will be on view at Sotheby’s New York from November 16-19 and in Sotheby’s London on December 2, 3, 5 and 6.Martin Cullingford, The Gramophone, news and online editor |
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| Internet links: |
 | Sotheby's |
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