Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894)
Autograph music manuscript, the stichvorlage of the 'Etudes' for piano, Op. 23, nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5, [c.1860]
15 pages, 275 x 365mm, unbound, mixture of upright (nos. 1 and 5) and oblong orientation (nos. 3 and 4), notated in black ink on eight or nine staves per page, some extended into the margins by the composer, with a number of alterations, deletions and corrections, including the deletion of seven bars at the end of the fifth Etude, marked by the printer in pencil and crayon, inscribed in another hand at the head of the first page: 'A Madame Marie Pleyel 6. Etudes pour le Piano', outer wrappers labelled by a contemporary hand: 'Rubinstein 6 Etuden opus 23 Handschrift'. Provenance: Sotheby's, 18 & 19 May 1989, lot 496

The printer's copy of this important early work by Rubinstein, bearing a number of corrections and alterations. Composed in Moscow in 1849-50 at the beginning of Rubinstein’s professional career, the present set of works went on to form a core part of the composer’s performing repertoire for his European concert tours during the 1850s and later. Designed both to test the performer’s technicality and to astonish the audience in their complexity, these works are not without passages full of the most sensitive music written for the instrument. The dedication which the set had acquired by the time of their first publication in c.1860 is to the Belgian pianist Marie Pleyel (1811-1875).