Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix.

first edition of the orchestral parts of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", formerly belonging to the American musicologist Theodore Baker, comprising the complete parts for violin I, violin II, viola, violoncello and bass, flute I, flute II, oboe I, oboe II, clarinet I, clarinet II, bassoon I, bassoon II, horn I, horn II, trumpet I, trumpet II (2), trumpet III/alto trombone (2), tenor trombone/bass trombone (and an additional bass trombone part), ophicleide, timpani, triangle and cymbals, containing extensive manuscript alterations and revisions, mostly in ink, some in pencil, presumably in Baker's hand, many entered on strips of manuscript paper and affixed to the parts, some passages in the parts covered over with strips of paper, 19, 15, 13, 19, 11, 10, 10, 8, 14, 11, 8, 8, 6, 6, 3, 3, 3, 1 and 1, 1 and 1, 1 and 1, 1, 2, 5, 1 and 1 pages, folio (33.8 x 26.5cm), engraved music, title to violin I part, plate number 7852, priced at 8 Thalers, publishers' stamps to title, with an additional similarly annotated scribal violin I part ("Violino Imo No3.") and a four-page Violin II part for the overture in an unidentified hand (initialled "A.G.") inserted loose in to the violin II part, the violin II part dated "1 Juni [?] 1859", the initials and date "A.G. 1859" written on a scrap of paper and affixed to the inside upper cover of the violin II part, manuscript inscription to lower cover of viola part ("Goodwin...May 9th 1860"), nineteenth-century manuscript wrappers ("Violino Imo Sommernachtstraum Von Mendelssohn Poss: Th: Baker..."), the parts individually sleeved in a modern portfolio, browning to wrappers, the parts thumbed, small tears to some lower right-hand corners, consistent with use, a few small stains, some corners creased

Cf. Leipzig Edition of the Works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Series V Volume 8 (2000), p. 290 (source I); not in Hoboken

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
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Rare. Although a few sets of parts of this work, one of Mendelssohn's greatest, are recorded in German libraries and in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, we have traced none at auction during the last thirty years.

This particular set is of exceptional interest not only on account of the fact that it belonged to the great American musicologist Theodore Baker (1851-1934), who had lived in Germany between 1874 and 1891, obtaining his doctorate in Leipzig in 1882, but also since it represents, with its extensive manuscript annotations, a valuable document of the work's reception history in the nineteenth century. Although the vocal parts and a four-hand keyboard version of the score had appeared in 1844, both the score and parts were not published until a year after Mendelssohn's death in 1847 (and for this reason are not recorded in MWV).