Bidspirit auction | [MUSIC AUTOGRAPHS] - GIOVANNI BOTTESINI

[MUSIC AUTOGRAPHS] - GIOVANNI BOTTESINI (1821–1889) - AUTOGRAPH MUSICAL FRAGMENT - GIOVANNI BOTTESINI (1821–1889) - BOTTESINI’S AUTOGRAPH MUSICAL FRAGMENT Autograph musical manuscript in the hand of Giovanni Bottesini, in dark brown ink on nineteenth-century music paper with printed staves, comprising a working draft or study for a vocal trio with instrumental accompaniment. The rapidly and fluently written score preserves the interweaving of three distinct solo vocal lines. With extensive later pencil annotations of an archival and analytical nature in the margins and between the staves. An interesting working manuscript by Bottesini, preserving a draft of a concerted dramatic scene for three voices and offering direct evidence of the compositional process of one of the leading Italian composer-performers of the nineteenth century. The principal portion of the manuscript presents three independent vocal parts conceived in close concerted interplay. Among the words legible in the sung text are the dramatically charged phrases: “Ah sì la madre sventurata, Ah sì ciascuno e al perfido cor…” The text and musical construction place the fragment firmly within the expressive language of nineteenth-century Italian melodrama, revealing Bottesini working through the relationship between individual vocal lines within an ensemble rather than writing a finished presentation copy. Of particular interest are the later pencil annotations, which appear to represent an attempt to identify and study the fragment. At the foot of the manuscript the three characters are identified as “La Madre”, “Amelia” and “Edmondo”. Further annotations along the upper margin record Bottesini’s name and dates together with those of several celebrated nineteenth-century singers associated with performances of his music. These include the baritone Camillo Everardi, accompanied by the date 1861, the tenor Francesco Tamagno, and the bass Francesco Navarrini.