RARUS'S GALLERY

Price Realized: $4 394 500

Коллекция рукописей 9-ти известнейших симфоний Моцарта, пронумерованных как №№ 22-30, переплетенных в один том, и написанных рукой самого композитора: Лондонский дилер Джеймс Кёкман 22 мая 1987 года заплатил на аукционе “Сотбис” в Лондоне более 4 млн. долларов за 508-страничный переплетенный сборник нот 9-ти симфоний, написанный рукой автора – Вольфганга Амадея Моцарта. Этот драгоценный и редкий манускрипт в 1987 году установил мировой рекорд продаж среди музыкальных произведений.

Приведем реакцию прессы на это событие в оригинале:

May 23, 1987|  From Associated Press

LONDON — The scores of nine symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the composer's handwriting were auctioned Friday to an unknown buyer for a record $4.34 million.The buyer bought the manuscripts, in one bound volume, from a private European collector, who asked for anonymity, for $3.95 million. Sotheby's auction house charged an additional 10% commission.Sotheby's described the work as "the most important music manuscript to be auctioned this century." The nine symphonies in the volume, Nos. 22 to 30, represent almost one-quarter of Mozart's output of 41 numbered symphonies. They were written in the 1770s, before Mozart was 20. The three acknowledged masterpieces in the volume are No. 29 in A, No. 25 in G minor and No. 28 in C.

A mystery buyer has paid a record $4,394,500 for a musical manuscript by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who died a pauper in 18th Century Vienna. James Kirkman, who later identified himself as a London picture dealer, bought the manuscript at auction Friday but refused to say if he was representing himself or someone else. Officials at Sotheby`s, the London auction house, said they assumed Kirkman was acting on behalf of a private collector who wished to remain anonymous. Kirkman refused to say whether the 508-page manuscript, which measures 9 by 6 1/2 inches, will now disappear from public view or will be exhibited. Sotheby`s said the sale price was the highest ever paid for a musical manuscript and the highest paid for a post-medieval manuscript of any kind. The Mozart scores, nearly all of them written in the composer`s hand in brown ink, contain nine symphonies, including three that are considered among his masterpieces. Sotheby`s described it as the most important Mozart manuscript still in private hands. The manuscript has been privately owned since Mozart`s death in 1791 and was offered for sale by an unidentified collector. About 200 people crowded into Sotheby`s sale room for the auction. Sotheby`s played a recording of Mozart`s Symphony No. 29 in A Major, the most important work in the manuscript, as bidding got underway. The bidding opened at $850,000 and rapidly climbed into the millions. For a time it appeared that Julian Browning, of Burgess Browning, a firm of London dealers in rare books, had won the manuscript with a bid of $4,301,000. But after a pause, Kirkman made his bid and Browning dropped out. As soon as the sale was concluded, Kirkman, a balding, smartly dressed, middle-age man wearing glasses, sprang from his chair with the alacrity of someone fleeing a burning building.

"No interviews, I`m sorry,"- he called over his shoulder to pursuing reporters, then leaped into a car whose driver was waiting for him outside and sped away.

Later, contacted by telephone, he said he was unable to talk about his purchase and doubted that he would be able to do so later.

Browning expressed disappointment that he failed to get the manuscript, saying: "Maybe we should have gone one or two bids higher."

"The manuscript represents one of the pinnacles of Western civilization," he said. "I think it`s worth many `Sunflowers,` wouldn`t you say?"

Stephen Roe, 34, one of the directors of Sotheby`s book department, said he had "no idea" who Kirkman was.

"It`s a very, very good price, more than we expected," he said. "It`s a great price. The manuscript is the best I have had the privilege to look at. It`s really a wonderful thing, and I`m sure it`s gone to a good home."

Sotheby`s had estimated beforehand that the manuscript might sell for more than $1,670,000.

Besides the Symphony No. 29, the scores in the manuscript include No. 25 in G Minor and No. 28 in C Major, both described as early Mozart masterpieces, and Symphonies No. 22 in C Major, No. 23 in D Major, No. 24 in B-flat Major, No. 26 in E-flat Major, No. 27 in G Major and No. 30 in D Major.

All the works were composed in 1773 and 1774, when Mozart was 17 and 18 years old.

RECORD PRICE FOR MOZART MANUSCRIPT

By RITA REIF

Published: May 23 1987

A 508-page manuscript of nine Mozart symphonies written in his own hand in Salzburg in the 1770's, before the composer's 20th birthday, was auctioned yesterday by Sotheby's in London for $4.34 million. The sale set a record for a musical manuscript sold at auction. The buyer, an unidentified American, subsequently notified the Pierpont Morgan Library that the manuscript would be placed on deposit there as soon as it arrived in the United States.

The auction took place with a musical background - the opening strains of Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A (K. 201), regarded as the finest of the works in the manuscript that was auctioned. Bidding was fierce and fast among eight parties in the room and four who vied for the work over telephones from Japan, the United States and Europe. The purchaser was James Kirkman, a London dealer in 20th-century art, who left the room as soon as the hammer fell and did not identify the individual he was representing.

''We are jubilant for Mozart and for the country,'' said Francis S. Mason Jr., acting director of the Morgan. ''It is wonderful that this Mozart manuscript is coming to us. In terms of the quality and importance, we have the finest collection outside Europe.''

The addition of the nine symphonies, Nos. 22 to 30, to the Morgan's holdings, which already include Symphonies 13 and 35, will make the library the largest repository of complete Mozart symphonies in the world. Until now, the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow, Poland, has had the largest number of the composer's symphonies - 10 complete symphonies and 2 half symphonies.

The Morgan's curator of music manuscripts, J. Rigbie Turner, said the importance of having these manuscripts ''available for examination by scholars, musicians and students from around the world'' cannot be overstated. He said the library would consult with conservators to determine how the bound volume could be exhibited and handled by scholars. ''Scholars come to try to establish whether the published editions agree with the text,'' he said.

The scores are written in brown ink on paper measuring 6 1/2 by 10 inches. ''I was expecting a much larger paper,'' Mr. Turner said, recalling his first view of the manuscript two weeks ago. ''I was amazed at how few corrections there were - page after page was written without change.''

The owner's intention to deposit the manuscript at the Morgan was not announced, and the leading Mozart scholar at All Souls College in Oxford, Dr. Alan Tyson, was surprised to hear the news late yesterday.

''I am delighted to think that this will be in a place where people can see these manuscripts and study them,'' Dr. Tyson said by telephone from London. ''In general in the Salzburg period, Mozart tended to write pretty neat scores,'' he added.

The scores purchased yesterday have not been seen or handled widely by scholars and musicians in this century. The consignor was described only as someone who ''is not British'' by Dr. Stephen Roe, Sotheby's music manuscripts specialist, who added that the manuscripts left Austria in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. Dr. Roe said the price paid for the Mozart scores is the second highest sum ever paid at auction for any manuscript, exceeded only by the Gospels of Henry the Lion, which was sold for $11.9 million at Sotheby's in London in 1983. The previous record for a music manuscript at auction was $548,000 for the first completed working draft of Stravinsky's ''Rite of Spring'' in 1982 at Sotheby's in London. Photoof the opening of Mozart's 23d symphone, which is in themanuscript auctioned at Sotheby's