CLASSICAL

The present autographs were taken within a few years of the quartet’s formation in 1931. Accompanying the item is an 11 x 9 cm newspaper cutting of a photograph of the youthful members of ‘THE FAMOUS GRILLER QUARTET - often heard over the wireless - which created a very favourable impression last night at the first concert for the season of the Aberdeen Chamber Music Club.’ The autographs are on one side of a 16 x 11 cm leaf with rounded edges, extracted from an autograph album. The signatures are one above the other, with Sidney Griller’s large and bold.

On 9 x 13.5 cm newspaper cutting of photographic portrait of Jarred. In good condition, lightly aged. Reads: ‘Mary Jarred / 1935.’ The photograph shows Jarred posing in a black dress and pearls, with left hand arranging her white fur coat to tastefully emphasize her bust. See image.

On 17.5 x 11.5 cm leaf of pink paper, with rounded edges, removed from autograph album. In good condition, lightly aged. Written in a large, expansive hand, diagonally and upwards. Reads: ‘With all / good wishes / Oda Slobodskaya’. See image.

1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged, with unobtrusive grease stain stain to one blank corner. Folded twice. Good bold hand with large signature. ‘My dear Miss Atkins - / How very kind of you to return me my old book. It was very valuable to me, & I was wondering where it was - so I am very glad to have it back again. / Hoping we shall meet before long / With kindest regards & many thanks / Yours very sincerely / Ethel Henry Bird.’

Orloff left Russia in 1921, and toured the world as a leading interpreter of Chopin. He settled in Grantown-on-Spey in 1948, becoming a British citizen four years later. ONE: 6.5 x 14 cm bifoliate Christmas card, with blue and black illustration ‘Designed by Kris’. Dated at head by Orloff ‘1963/64’. Beneath the printed message he writes a large signature on two lines: ‘Nicolas Orloff’. Recipient’s name written at foot, in another hand: ‘Alan Lockhart’. The verso of the second leaf of this card is laid down on the verso of the following item.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Even towards the end of his life Bernard Shaw could remark that ‘he can still leave the next best tenor in England an immeasurable distance behind’. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of mount to inner margin. Folded once. Very nice embossed letterhead, printed in gold, brown, green and red, with bird perched on top of a treble clef, entwined with foliage and a twisted branch in the shape of the ‘R’ of ‘Reeves’. Reads: ‘Sir / This autograph with pleasure, according to your request / Yours faithfully / June 1872 / J. Sims Reeves’.

For Diaghilev Slobodskaya starred in the 1922 Paris premiere of Stravinsky's opera Mavra, and she toured Europe as principal soprano with Chaliapin’s company. For her serious operatic work she retained her real name, but she used the stage name ‘Odali Careno’ when performing in vaudeville and light entertainment. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Dated in another hand at foot: ‘24-6-30’ (the period of her appearance in a London Palladium production).

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On strip of paper, roughly 10 x 3.5 cm, cut into an irregular rectangular shape. On one side is the valediction: ‘Yours very sincerely / Harry Plunket Greene’. On the other a fragment of three lines of the letter: ‘[...] I hope no [...] / started that things [...] / go on well. I am part[...]’. See image.

On 11 x 17.5 piece of shiny art paper, cut from a programme. The signature ?Paul Robeson? is written across Robeson?s front, beneath his smiling face in a black and white photograph. Beneath the photograph is the caption: ? ?A voice like his is worth waiting ten years to hear, and an art like his comes once in a generation.? / THE TORONTO EVENING TELEGRAM?. On the reverse are part of the lyrics from two songs, the second being ?Short?nin? bread?.

32pp, 8vo. In very good condition, on lightly-aged laid Whatman paper with watermarked date 1830. Ruled in pencil by Campbell, and written out in his attractive calligraphic hand. With occasional emendations, and with an entire revision of the twentieth page made by overlaying another leaf of paper over the top of the original with wafers in each corner. (The two versions can be separated from one another with ease.) Campbell's essay was the leading article in the first issue of 'The Metropolitan', published in London by James Cochrane and Co.

2pp, 12mo. On bifolium. Folded once. The first page is scored through in ink, with pencil annotations at head. The final page, with Saléza’s signature, is unmarked. He asks him for as many seats as possible for that evening. He would like ‘une bonne loge, deux Stalls et plusieurs petites places’. He will pass by the office to collection, and asks for them to be left in his name.

1p, 12mo. On bifolium. In fair condition, with two pencil notes at head, one in orange. Folded twice. He hopes he is not abusing the kindness of 'Monsieur Menager' (i.e. the house manager) by asking for two seats, for his wife and her friend, as they would like to go to the opera that night. After terminating the letter in the customary Gallic fashion, he adds a postscript asking for the reply to be left with the porter.

Clearly given in response to an autograph collector, and written for display on front panel of envelope. Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.5 cm. In good condition, lightly aged. Horizontal crease along bottom not affecting signature, which reads ‘Emma Albani Gye | 1883.’ In 1883, after several years of enormous success in Europe, Albani returned to Canada to give a series of recitals. Thousands turned out to greet her arrival in Montreal.

At top right-hand corner of part of printed English libretto to Leoncavallo’s ‘Pagliacci’. Dimensions: 13.5 x 17.5 cm. Sloping upwards towards the corner, and underlined: ‘Luigi Montesanto | 1936’. On shiny art paper and in fair condition, lightly creased and a little dog-eared at the corner of the signature. The cutting is headed: ‘Prologue (Pagliacci) ... ... ... ... Leoncavallo | LUGI MONTESANTO | PROLOGUE’, with thirty-two lines of English translation.

Both items in good condition, lightly aged and worn. Excessively scarce, with COPAC only listing one copy (at the British Library) of both items. ONE: 'An Irish Cradle Song. Words by W. B. Yeats. From Poems by W. B. Yeats, published by T. Fisher Unwin'. [1914.] 5 + [1]pp., folio. Title page carries the gaelic motto: Goth yani me von gilli beg, | N heur ve thu more a creena. TWO: 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree. Words by W. B. Yeats'. [1917.] 5 + [1]pp., folio. Illustration of tree on bank of lake on front cover.

3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. On aged paper, with punch hole through both leaves at head, small closed cut along bottom edge of first leaf, and with paper and part of another letter (from an album) glued onto the reverse of the second leaf. Folded once. The signature 'M. Massenet' is explained in Massenet's obituary in the Musical Times, 1 September 1912, which speaks of 'the composer's known antipathy to the name Jules […] He preferred to be called “M. Massenet” simply'. The recipient of this enthusiastic letter is not named.

Both items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. ONE (13 January 1934): 1p., landscape 12mo. The 'proposed article sounds the sort of thing', but Strangeways cannot accept it until he sees it. TWO (3 February 1934): 2pp., landscape 12mo. He thanks him for sending the article, regarding which he writes: 'if the musicians mentioned in it had been more important or there had been more about them, it wd. have been worth printing; but as it is I am afraid it is not of sufficient interest.' The writer's reference to 'Ranzini' is, Strangeways points out, 'almost certainly' a mistake for 'V.

On reverse of 11.25 x 8.25 cm card carrying a black and white print of the autograph score of Coates's second 'phantasy', 'The Three Bears' (1926). In good condition, lightly aged. Reads: 'To May Hirst | with best wishes | from | Eric Coates | Photograph of | Original Full Score of | The Three Bears'.

2pp, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice. The content is remarkably sprightly and the handwriting firm. The letter begins: 'My dear Russell, | Telephone: no good. So I guess that you are holiday-making. | Lord Drogheda is my close friend & collaborator. His wife Joan is a pianist[.] I have heard her only when she gave her services. But she appears to practice daily, like a professional trooper.' He has advised her to 'play chamber music.

2pp, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice. The content is remarkably sprightly and the handwriting firm. The letter begins: 'My dear Russell, | Telephone: no good. So I guess that you are holiday-making. | Lord Drogheda is my close friend & collaborator. His wife Joan is a pianist[.] I have heard her only when she gave her services. But she appears to practice daily, like a professional trooper.' He has advised her to 'play chamber music.

1p, 4to. Typescript with a couple of minor autograph corrections. Unpublished, but perhaps relating to her 1945 book 'Ariadne and the Bull'. At foot, in Farjeon's autograph: 'From E. F. | 20 Perrin's Walk | N.W.3.' In fair condition, on aged and worn paper, with nicking and loss at edges. A chatty and entertaining retelling of the story. As an example of the tone, early on Farjeon writes: 'The Minotaur was a monster with the gigantic body of a man topped by a bull's head; his father was a bull and his mother was Pasiphae, Minos's Queen.

1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Only the salutation ('Dear Mrs. Russell,') and the valediction ('Yours very sincerely | Edward German :' are in German's hand; the rest is by a secretary. He writes that he would 'have liked to write you [sic] personally, but it is a little more than I can manage at present'. Nevertheless he assures her that he is 'most grateful' for her 'very kind message'.

Arthur Sidgwick's long entry in the Oxford DNB concludes with the following assessment: 'a university liberal of rare consistency and stamina: a progressive bridging Victorian and Edwardian generations, and pre-eminent among the male dons who made a place for women's higher education in Oxford'. At the time of the present letter he was nearing the end of a 'brilliant' undergraduate career at Cambridge, with the winning of many prizes: 'In 1863 he was second in the first class of the classical tripos and fourteenth senior optime in mathematics, and was also president of the union.

On 2 x 11 cm slip of paper cut from the end of a letter. In fair condition, lightly aged, with small tape stain from mount at the edge to the left of the signature. Reads: 'very truly yours | J. S. Mill'. On the reverse, in Mill's autograph, are the words: 'the Government for a pecuniary'. Mill is considered one of the most influential figures in the history of classical liberalism, and one of the leading English-speaking philosophers of the nineteenth century.

3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. On aged paper, with punch hole through both leaves at head, small closed cut along bottom edge of first leaf, and with paper and part of another letter (from an album) glued onto the reverse of the second leaf. Folded once. The signature 'M. Massenet' is explained in Massenet's obituary in the Musical Times, 1 September 1912, which speaks of 'the composer's known antipathy to the name Jules […] He preferred to be called “M. Massenet” simply'. The recipient of this enthusiastic letter is not named.

See Donaldson's entry in the Oxford DNB, which states that he was 'greatly beloved by his friends, who included N. C. Thirlwall and W. H. Thompson. The diarist Henry Crabb Robinson spoke enthusiastically of the charm of his conversation.' 3pp, 16mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of mount adhering to blank reverse of second leaf. No salutation or valediction, and the recipient is not named, but the item derives from the papers of Sir Thomas Gery Cullum and his wife Lady Anne Cullum, of Hardwick House.

1p, 12mo. Leaf of lightly-browned and creased aged paper, with closed tears to one edge. The two men are clearly writing in response to requests for autographs. Marchetti has written out four bars – slightly affected at end by closed tear – from what he states is 'Ruy Blas Preludio'. Beneath this he signs, in a firm attractive hand, 'F Marchetti'. At the head he dates: 'Roma 14 9bre 92'.

1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. In envelope with penny red stamp and postmark, addressed to Steggatt at 53 Norwich Street, Cambridge. The letter reads: 'Dear Sir | I regret that I cannot give you an order. I have no doubt of the excellence of the cigars, but I never by any chance smoke a cigar. | Believe me | Yours truly | C S. Calverley'. A nice Cambridge association, given that Calverley's most famous poem is 'Ode to Tobacco', and that it features in Cambridge on a brass plaque on the wall of the former Bacon's tobacconists.

16pp, 8vo. Stapled pamphlet. In fair condition, lightly aged, covers dusty and spotted, staples slightly rusted. P.2 carries an announcement of the joint publication by 'Mr. Heinemann' and the Macmillan Company of New York 'of a new series of Greek and Latin texts with English translations on the opposite page and brief biographical prefaces. The series takes its name from Mr. James Loeb, originator of the idea, […]'. The page gives details of the plan, and p.15 carries a 'List of the First Twenty Volumes, 'Ready in September' and 'Ready in November'.

On 7 x 10.5 piece of orange paper, removed from an autograph album. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Expansive signature, with surname underlined and dots to i's like dashes. Reads: 'Good luck to you! | Benno Moiseiwitsch | Decr. 1946'. Autographs on reverse, dated to 21 July 1946, of composer 'Charles Hambourg' and pianist 'Irene Kohler' (1909-1996).