Collecting Music Manuscripts

The Financial Times collecting pages had been on hiatus from the end of June until the beginning of September.  The paper typically has interesting art commentary and articles, so I am pleased to see the collecting section back and active. The FT collecting section recently posted on collecting music manuscripts.  The article states the musical manuscripts market is typically tranquil, but every once in a while something new and special rocks the market.  The article states an important collection will be coming to market in Paris this October.

The FT reports

To scholars, an untampered-with manuscript is of inestimable value, being a unique indicator of a composer’s intentions. This is why the dismemberment (for commercial reasons) of Beethoven’s sketchbooks after his death was such a disaster, and why Roe and his colleagues are so opposed to the well-meaning but misguided “restorations” which some of the biggest libraries have carried out. The insertion, in Berlin, of acid-free membranes within the split pages of Bach manuscripts was in his view tantamount to taking a Brillo pad to the Elgin marbles. He firmly enunciates his own principles of restoration: “In the first instance you do nothing, and then as little as possible, making sure you can undo anything you do,” he declares.

As the Hercule Poirot of the music-manuscript business, Roe has pulled some notable coups. Some have been discoveries – a JC Bach manuscript in a South London garage; Clara Schumann’s calligraphy threaded through the manuscript of Robert Schumann’s piano concerto – while others have lain in the exposure of celebrated fakes. He likens spotting a fake to looking through a window that has frosted over. “Then one corner starts to evaporate, and then the whole thing becomes crystal clear.” Fakes, he says, come in two categories: those designed to deceive, and honest scribal copies (in the 18th century, printing was more expensive than copying by hand, and when the copy was made, the autograph manuscript was often thrown away).

What advice would he give to collectors? “I always say, buy things that you love: that should be the driving force. You’ve got to live with these things, and love them, and they have to love you back. Making a profit is incidental.” When pressed, he agrees that the big names – Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Chopin – are still the best bet, having seen the fastest growth in value over the past 10 years. “But a Debussy or Wagner letter won’t necessarily be worth more in 10 years’ time than what you give for it now.”

Source: The Financial Times