Galleria Sacerdoti; Monteverdi, MarioBiblio.com
Monteverdi, Claudio ; [and others?]Biblio.com
L’Incoronazione di Poppea no title issued with this facsimile; Facsimile of manuscript It.Cl.4.N.439 della Biblioteca Nazionale di S. Marco in Venezia
193741497Milano: Fratelli Bocca. 1937. Facsimile. Hardcover. Very Good. Oblong 4to; 108 ff. & colophon pages; An oblong quarto volume bound in full brown morocco leather elaborate decorative tooling around the edges of the covers and all over flat spine lightly and irregularly gilt in imitation of the mid-17th century original edges of the leaves gilt and gauffered. This is a rare and special facsimile -- one of five copies printed in 1937 -- of one of the two known early musical scores of one of the most important operas -- Claudio Monteverdi's masterpiece: L'incoronazione di Poppea. There are still unknown features about this landmark opera's history and Monteverdi's intentions for its performance. "L'incoronazione di Poppea" was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo Venice as part of the 1642–43 carnival season; and while we know the opening date of the carnival the date of the first performance of "Poppea" is not known. Remarkably there is documentary proof of an early revival of L'incoronazione in Naples in 1651. The survival of any work from this period years after a first production and after Monteverdi's death in 1643 is most unusual. This manuscript score was rediscovered in Venice in 1888 and performances throughout Europe slowly multiplied from that point forward. This manuscript score entered the Biblioteca Nazionale di S. Marco in Venezia shelf mark Cl.4 - N.439 -- as part of the large and important collection of books and manuscripts donated as the legacy of Girolamo Contarini 1770-1843. Most likely it had been one of the 120 musical codices which once belonged to the Attorney Marco Contarini 1632 - 1689 a passionate lover of music. The 1888 "rediscovery" refers to the date of publication of scholar Taddeo Wiel's 'I codici musicali contariniani del secolo XVII della R. Biblioteca di San Marco in Venezia illustrati da dr Taddeo Wiel." Venezia: Fratelli Visentini 1888. To say that this facsimile is made with care is a significant understatement. There are 108 leaves with the score on staves appearing on both versos and rectos of the leaves. The first - "Prologo" is trimmed at the bottom like the original; the verso of the leave marked "108" is blank. There is only one printed page in this volume -- the colophon at the end which states that the production was finished on 20 December 1937 by the Casa Editrice Fratelli Bocca Milano. The edition consisted of 300 numbered copies with the specific note that copies numbered 1-5 were specially bound - "La tiratura e` di soli 300 esemplari numerati da 1 a 300. Gli esemplari da 1 a 5 sono presentati in elegantissime artistiche legature". Indeed this copy is press-numbered "5." The remaining 295 copies were issued by Fratelli Bocca in marbled boards and dated 1938 with a 16 pp. "Introduzione di Giacomo Benvenuti." This specially bound copy one of only five remains as it was issued -- with neither title page nor the introductory text. See OCLC Number: 638299219 the regular 295 copies are represented by OCLC Number: 4231806. Yale's Beinecke Music Library has another of the special copies Esemplare N. 2. Binding stamped: Ernest Newman. From the Albi Rosenthal Collection of Monteverdi and the birth of opera. Yale also has copy n. 21 of the "regular" issue. The "other" manuscript score usually called the "Naples" manuscript was discovered in 1930 and is preserved in the Conservatorio di Musica S. Pietro a Majella -- MS Rari 6.4.1. The long-lived composer Monteverdi wrote one of the earliest operas 'L'Orfeo' -- but most modern critics would agree that L'incoronazione di Poppea was the culmination of Monteverdi's achievement a benchmark in the transition between Renaissance style in music and the Baroque. "Poppea" is based on historic figures rather than mythological characters. It combines scenes of tragedy comedy and romance; and it concentrates on its main characters with a less prominent role for the chorus -- all firsts for opera. And while it has been the subject of almost continual study and speculation by musicologists since this early manuscript score was rediscovered in 1888 L'incoronazione di Poppea is not just a an important benchmark in the history of opera but has re-entered the repetoire as a living breathing work of art. . (Fratelli Bocca) hardcover
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