Autograph music manuscript, sketches for 'Brigg Fair', 'Hassan' and the Sonata no.1 for violin and piano, [c.1905]

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
Autograph music manuscript, sketches for 'Brigg Fair', 'Hassan' and the Sonata no.1 for violin and piano, [c.1905]
Approximately 70 bars in piano score, in brown ink and pencil. Four pages, 90 x 35mm, bifolium, with cancellations and emendations, extensively annotated by Delius's amanuensis Eric Fenby in May 1947, identifying the sketches. Provenance: Sold by Eric Fenby to Alan Burr, 6 May 1947 (two letters and two financial documents); Sotheby's, 12 May 1981, lot 137.

Autograph sketches for three works, including the violin sonata no.1. According to Fenby, 'This is one of the original strips of MSS. paper carried by Delius on his walking tours in Norway ... Delius rarely kept his sketches'. Fenby's annotations identify six sketches on p.1, of which four are for the Sonata no.1 for violin and piano (e.g. 'The germ of the free, rhapsodic melody at the opening of Sonata No. 1 (Violin and Pianoforte)'), while others are annotated 'the germ of the tenor melody in the Closing Scene of "Hassan"', and 'These two bars ... gave Delius the idea for the 4th variation of "Brigg Fair"'. The sketches on pp.2 and 3 are identified as for the Sonata no.1, and those on p.4 as for variation no.5 of 'Brigg Fair'. One of the sketches on p.1 is annotated by Delius with the title 'English Rhapsody'.

Delius began sketching his Violin sonata no.1 in 1905, but did not complete it until 1914. 'Brigg Fair' (1907) is a set of variations on a Lincolnshire folk song. The much later Hassan (1920) was incidental music for an oriental drama. Delius's walking tours in Norway began in 1887, influenced by his friendship with Edvard Grieg, and were to continue for thirty years or more.