Beschreibung:

ALBUM OF MAX KALBECK (1850-1921) The fine musical album of Max Kalbeck, the Viennese music critic and biographer of Brahms, containing musical quotations, drawings, poems and inscriptions, around eighty items in all, c.1873-1900, including: 1) around thirty autograph musical quotations by Brahms, Puccini, Johann Strauss and others, most inscribed to Kalbeck: GRIEG: quotation from Violin Sonata no.3, three bars notated on a hand-drawn stave, signed and inscribed, ("3t Violinsonate...Edvard Grieg, Zur fr. Erinnerung an den verhängnissvollen Mittagstisch an 24/3/96"), MASSENET: quotation from Werther, signed and inscribed in violet ink, with Kalbeck's German translation of Werther's opening aria: ("O natur! Den Himmel hienieden Hast Du den Sterblichen beschieden! 'Werther', erste act, à notre remarquable collaborateur Max Kalbeck, J. Massenet, Wien Janvier 1892."); BRAHMS: quotation of the opening 3 bars of Piano Concerto no.1 in D minor, notated in dark brown ink on two staves, signed and inscribed ("Im December 74 Breslau, zu freundl. Gedenken Johs Brahms"), CLARA SCHUMANN: quotation of the first 4 bars of Piano Trio in G minor op.17, signed and inscribed in violet ink ("...Zu freundlichem Erinnern, Clara Schumann. München im Lenz 1878"), SAINT-SAENS: quotation of the main theme from Piano Concerto no.4, notated on two staves, signed and inscribed ("20 Nov. 1877. C. Saint-Saëns"); JOHANN STRAUSS II: quotation of (four bars from Die Fledermaus, signed and inscribed ("für Max Kalbeck...zur freundlichen Erinnerung, Wien 1. Februar 85, Johann Strauß"), PUCCINI: quotation of the aria 'Manon Lescaut mi chiamo' from Act 1 of Manon Lescaut, inscribed in violet ink on three staves, signed ("...all Illmo Sig Kalbeck, Giacomo Puccini"), undated but possibly c.1897 and other autograph quotations by Joseph Joachim, Carl Goldmark ("Fata Morgana" op.37 no.6), Max Bruch (the chorus 'Willkommen Fremdling', from Odysseus), Robert von Hornstein, Hermann Scholtz, Hermann Levi (4-part Canon for women's voices), Sarasate ("Zapateado"), Ignaz Brüll, Anton Rubinstein (Breslau, 1879), Bernhard Scholtz, Julius Stockhausen (from Schubert's Greisengesang D.778), Eugen d'Albert ("Allemande" from the Suite op.1), George Henschel, Carl Reinecke (a puzzle canon), Julius Röntgen, Giuseppe Buonamici and the Heckmann Quartett (at a concert with Brahms on 14 November 1884: Robert Heckmann, Otto Forberg, Theodor Allekotte und Robert Bellmann); 2) drawings by Franz Defregger, Franz Lenbach, Ludwig Neustätter, Theodor Ethoffer and one unsigned, and 3) poems, aphorisms and inscriptions by Hans von Bülow (signed "...Zukunftsmusiker a.D."), Philipp Spitta (a quotation from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre), Emanuel Geibel, Paul Heyse, Carl Lemcke, Moriz Carriere, Ludwig Schneegans, Oscar Blumenthal, Carl Fuchs, Theodor Kirchner, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Otto Brahm, Julius Stuttenheim and others 74 leaves, 8vo (c.20 x 13.5cm), c.80 items, mainly rectos only, in gatherings of up to 12 leaves each, modern brown morocco elaborately gilt, retaining old binding-label (F.W. Papke of Vienna), mainly Breslau, Munich and Vienna, 1873-1897, where dated This is one of the richest musical albums from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to have appeared at auction. Max Kalbeck was a music critic and the first important biographer of Brahms. The album traces his career in Breslau, Munich and (from 1880) Vienna, where he joined the Wiener allgemeine Zeitung at the instigation of Brahms's supporter, Eduard Hanslick. He was an influential music critic and became a close friend of the composer. His enduring accomplishment was the four-volume biography that established Brahms as an icon of traditional German liberal values, amidst growing religious nationalism in Austria. Kalbeck's Brahms is akin to Boswell's Johnson and, though dated, remains indispensable. Brahms's quotation from the First Piano Concerto was written in Breslau in 1874, probably marking the occasion when he and