Dido and Aeneas [antikvár]

PREFACEThis is a working edition, intended chiefly for performance. It is also intended for reference, because at present it is the only full score that can be bought. The Purcell Society edition, published in 1889, has been out of print for many years and in later versions the full score has been availableonly on hire. A masterpiece such as Dido and Aeneas should have a scholarly edition of the score, reproducing Purcell's intentions as nearly as possible, but as the autograph score has not yet been discovered there can be no authentic edition.The Existing ManuscriptsThere are two manuscripts of the work, in the handwriting of two different copyists. The one in the Library of St. Michael's College, Tenbury, is described in the Purcell Society edition as 'a fine MS. score written by John Travers, about 1720', but the writing is unlike that of Travers, and the watermark of the paper shows that it cannot be dated before the second half of the eighteenth century,* also there aie many copyist's errors.The other manuscript was for many years in the possession of W.H.Cummings, the editor of the Purcell Society score. After his death it was sold in 1917 to the late Marquis Tokugawa and placed in the Nanki Music Library at Tokio. The present owner, Mr.Kyuhei Oki, lent the manuscript to the Purcell-Handelexhibition in London during the summer of 1959. He also very generously allowed us to work from a microfilm while preparing this present edition of the work.Miss Pamela Willetts of the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum has found that the handwriting of the Oki MS. (approximately 1800) is the same as that in several volumes of works by Handel and Ame T^iichwere the property of Dr.Samuel Arnold (1740-1802). There are fewer copyists' errors in this MS. than in the Tenbury MS., but neither copy shows any sign of having been used in performance.'See 'New Light on Vido and Aeneas' by Eric Walter White, in Henry Purcell: Essays on his Music, edited Imogen Hoist, O.U.P. 1959.Previous Published EditionsThe earliest published edition was an incomplete version edited by G.A.Macfarren for the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1841. At that time no libretto had been discovered. In 1870 E.F. Rimbault published a vocal score. A copy of the libretto had then been found, and Rimbault learnt that a good deal of the music was missing, but in spite of 'diligent searches' he failed to discover other manuscripts.When W.H.Cummings made his Purcell Society edition of 1889 he was able to consult not only his own manuscript (now the Oki MS.) which he had purchased in 1877, but also the Tenbury MS., (then in the private library of the Rev. Sir Frederick Ouseley), and a set ofmanuscript parts which Edward J. Dent later identified as agreeing with the Musical Antiquarian Society edition of 1841. Unfortunately (Summings left no record in his Purcell Society edition of where his own manuscript score had differed from the Tenbury MS. or from the set of parts. Now that a comparison of the manuscripts is possible, it can clearly be seen that he often preferred the Musical Antiquarian version to either of the others.When Dent prepared his edition of the work for the Oxford University Press in 1925 he based it on the Tenbury MS. as he did not know where the other MS. was.B.i H. 18716