HUMMEL, Johann Nepomuk (1778-1837)

HUMMEL, Johann Nepomuk (1778-1837)
Autograph music manuscript signed, a canon, n.p. [?London], 1830.
Two pages, 303 x 240mm, watermark ‘CANSELL 1828’, ruled with 12 staves per page, notated in open score on six systems of three staves, with treble, tenor and bass clefs, signed and inscribed (‘für Herrn Stockhausen von seinem Freunde J.N. Hummel 1830’), autograph cancellations and emendations (slightly tattered at edges). Provenance: Sotheby’s, 8 December 2000, lot 102.

The first autograph music manuscript from the great pianist and composer Johann Hummel to appear on the market in almost twenty years. The watermark suggests our manuscript, a canon, was written by Hummel on stock from an English papermill; we know that he added a three-part canon to the autograph album of Vincent Novello (1781-1861), organist and founder of the Novello publishing house, during his trip to London in July 1830. Perhaps the dedicatee, ‘Herr Stockhausen’, could be the German composer and harpist Franz Anton Adam Stockhausen (1789-1868), who had been living in London with his wife, the soprano Margarethe Stockhausen, since 1827.

Provenance
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium.