Lot 3: BACH, JOHANN SEBASTIAN.

THE FIRST EDITION OF THE B-MINOR MASS (PART TWO), TOGETHER WITH A LATER EDITION OF PART ONE

THE FIRST EDITION OF THE B-MINOR MASS (PART TWO), TOGETHER WITH A LATER EDITION OF PART ONE

1) Die hohe Messe in H-moll...nach dem Autographum gestochen...I Lieferung [score], Bonn: N. Simrock & Zürich: H.G. Nägeli, [1853]

2) Die hohe Messe in H-moll...nach dem Autographum gestochen...II Lieferung [score], Bonn: N. Simrock & Zürich: H.G. Nägeli, [1845], first edition of part two of the b-minor mass

2 volumes in one, 93 and 95 pages, folio (c.32.6 x 25.7cm), plate numbers 5414 and 4377, engraved music, blue and black lithographed titles, priced at 60 francs, music-seller's blind stamp to titles, ownership inscription of William Sterndale Bennett to front free endpaper, cloth boards, rebacked and recornered in morocco, creasing to a few leaves, a few tiny tears to margins, a few pages trimmed to plate, some slight damp-staining to margins

PROVENANCE

formerly belonging to the English composer William Sterndale Bennett.

LITERATURE

Hoboken 18 and RISM B 431 (II Lieferung); BWV, p.384

NOTE

Sterndale Bennett was a protogé of Mendelssohn, who of course played a role in the Bach revival of the early nineteenth century.

The first part of the Mass, corresponding to the Lutheran mass, had been engraved and published by Nägeli in 1833, but the second part appeared much delayed only in 1845. Simrock's later edition of the First Part appeared in 1853.