RARE, UNRECORDED AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT BY FELIX MENDELSSOHN (ALTERNATE VERSION OF "IM FRÜHLING") PRESENTLY ON SOTHEBY'S AUCTION BLOCK

Sketch of Mendelssohn by Carl Müller,
15 September 1842, Frankfurt
Click on image to enlarge

A rare autograph manuscript of Mendelssohn's lied "Im Frühling" ("Ich hör' ein Vöglein locken"), WoO 18^[1] has hit the Sotheby's auction block.

The manuscript presently up for sale, signed and inscribed by the composer "zu freundlicher Erinnerung Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, London, den 8ten July 1842" diverges "substantially" from the published scores of the work and is unrecorded in the Thematisch-systematisches Werkverzeichnis.

The beautifully executed autograph, pictured below, is a must-have in the collection of any Mendelssohn aficionado. The lot (no. 23) is described by the auction house as "2 pages, folio (31.4 x 24.4cm), on a bifolium from an album, 12-stave paper, the 1st page blank."

The starting bid for this item is 17,000 GBP. Those interested must act quickly - the lot closes 14 July at 9:23 AM EDT.

Click here to learn more about this item, or to place your bid.

From Sotheby's:

Re-discovered autograph manuscript, Im Frühling" ("Ich hör' ein Vöglein locken"),
WoO 18 by Felix Mendelssohn, author signed, dated London, the 8th July, 1842.
Click on image to enlarge | Sotheby's

"...notated in dark brown (nearly black) ink on up to four 3-stave systems per page, in B-flat major, marked "Andante", with an autograph correction in bar 5, containing a different text for the second verse from that found in the printed scores, together with many changes to the accompaniment in the third verse and differences to the dynamic markings throughout...

The text in the second verse is completely different from the published versions, including the printed scores and Alfred Böttger's original poem. Here the text reads: "Und aus dem blauen Flieder ruft ohne Rast und Ruh, ihm tausend Liebeslieder die Braut als Antwort zu". There is a striking harmonic shift to a G major seventh chord, two bars before the final phrase in the voice, earlier than in the editions by Julius Rietz (c.1880) and Max Friedländer. It also contains revisions to the accompaniment in bars 34-35 and 50, and different chords in bars 20, 24, 27 and 31.

Mendelssohn's composing manuscript, now in Krakow, is dated 20 April 1841, but the song was not published until 1846, both as an octavo insert in an edition of Böttger's poems, and by J.J. Ewer of London as "I hear a small Bird calling". It is not known what control the composer exerted over either edition. Klemm of Leipzig published it again as no.1 of Zwei Gesänge, still without opus number, in 1849, after Mendessohn's death. Some but not all of the alterations found in this manuscript are confirmed in a later autograph given to Jenny Lind in 1845...

This manuscript is not recorded in the Thematisch-systematisches Werkverzeichnis (2009), ed. R. Wehner: song no. K 107."

Above: Dame Janet Baker sings Mendelssohn's Ich hör' ein Vöglein locken under Daniel Barenboim. Geoffrey Parsons on piano.


Footnote:

^[1]Not to be confused with Mendelssohn's 1829 lied of the same name, Im Frühling: Ihr frühlingstrunknen Blumem (12 Lieder for Voice and Piano, Op. 9 no. 4) with text by Johann Gustav Droysen. This manuscript concerns Im Frühling: Ich hör' ein Vöglein locken, WoO 18 from the composer's 1841 2 Songs (no.1) with text by Alfred Böttger, as heard above.

-Rose.

BACK TO HOME PAGE