Beschreibung:

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881), Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) Proof copy of the first edition of the vocal score of Mussorgsky's Zhenit'ba [The Marriage], with autograph corrections by Glazunov and others. St Petersburg: W. Bessel and Co., 1908 Proofs for Mussorgsky's abandoned opera, annotated by Glazunov and perhaps by Rimsky-Korsakov. 61 leaves, foliated 3, 5-64, engraved music, plate number 5967, proofs for the first edition of the vocal score, corrections on 19 pages by Glazunov in blue pencil, signed with initials on pp. 51 and 54, further corrections in lead pencil in unidentified hands. Contemporary cloth-backed boards. Provenance: (1) Serge Diaghilev (ballet impresario, 1872-1929), given to: (2) Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (Franco-British musicologist, 1877-1944): autograph note signed on endpaper in French, 'These proofs, with autograph corrections by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov were given to me by Serge Diaghilev in November 1908' (translation). (3) Sotheby's, 3 December 2008, lot 71. (4) Quaritch cat.1390 (2009), lot 50. Mussorgsky composed the first act of The Marriage with great rapidity in June-July 1868, to a libretto adapted by himself from Gogol's two-act comedy of 1842. The constraints imposed by the extreme realism of the work, aiming to render the natural rhythms of the text with the greatest possible fidelity, coupled with the first burst of activity on his masterpiece Boris Godunov, led Mussorgsky to abandon the project without completing the orchestration of the first act, although it received a private performance at the house of César Cui in St Petersburg in the same year. After Mussorgsky's death, his publisher Bessel employed the composer's close friend Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to edit and in some cases re-orchestrate and complete his unpublished works, sometimes to controversial effect. The publication of The Marriage followed a second (also private) performance of the opera in 1906 at Rimsky-Korsakov's home (his wife, Nadezhda Purgold, was the pianist at both this and the first performance). By the time the present edition was in the press, Rimsky-Korsakov was in failing health (he died on 21 June 1908), and although some textual corrections by him are acknowledged in the engraved music (e.g on pp. 49 and 56) he may have left the proof corrections entirely to his protégé Alexander Glazunov. The first public performance of the work took place in Moscow on 12 December 1908. Serge Diaghilev, who had promoted performances by both Rimsky and Glazunov in Paris in 1907, may have received the present score with a view to mounting a production in Paris in the 1909 season, following the great success of his production of Boris Godunov in May 1908.