[Rarebooks] fa: ROBERT BURNS & FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN - ORIGINAL SCOTTISH & WELSH AIRS - Thomson 1799-1806

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 7. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y7vp8rhy

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[George Thomson, editor]; Robert Burns, Joseph Haydn, and others: A Select Collection of Original Scotish [sic] Airs, for the Voice. To each of which are added Introductory & Concluding Symphonies, & Accompanyments for the Piano Forte & Violin, by Kozeluch. With Select & Characteristic Works by the most admired Scotish Poets, adapted to each Air, the greater number of these written for this work by Burns... [Third] Set. London: printed & sold by Preston, at his Wholesale Warehouses, No. 97 Strand. Sold also by the Proprietor G. Thomson, Edinburgh, [1799]. ESTC T186178. [BOUND WITH:] A Select Collection of Original Welsh Airs adapted for the Voice, united to Characteristic English Poetry never before published, with Introductory & Concluding Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte or Harp, Violin & Violoncello composed chiefly by Joseph Haydn. Vol. [1]. London: Printed & Sold by Preston... and by G. Thomson the Editor & Proprietor, Edinburgh, [1809].

Two works bound in one volume, first editions; large folio (37.5 cm) in early/period mottled calf; engraved title-pages and musical notation, one engraved plate. Both works SIGNED BY THOMSON on the title-page, with his MS notation of the set and volume number. Binding with bumping and rubbing to the edges, cracking at the spine head; occasional damp-stains, most prominently on the title-page and plate of the second work; some browning and spotting to the leaves, again most noticeable in the second work.

Badgered and cajoled by Thomson, Robert Burns ended up contributing about 114 songs to the editor's collection of Scottish airs, continuing to supply them until just a few days before his death in 1796. In this third set of the collection there are nineteen songs bearing Burns's name, most of them original to this work, as well as "Should auld acquaintance be forgot" and several others that Burns probably polished and improved. Thomson was also fortunate in his collaborator on the Welsh airs. As he wrote in his preface, "To procure the most perfect Accompaniments...to each Air, the Editor applied to the celebrated Haydn, from whom... he most fortunately obtained a very large proportion of the whole, many of the Airs being also arranged for two voices by that inimitable Master... The originality, the rich variety of fancy, the beauty and character which he has infused into these Symphonies and Accompaniments, will afford a lasting proof of his truly exquisite taste, and unequalled genius." These songs were among the very last works Haydn composed. Other contributors to the two works include Sir Walter Scott, M. G. "Monk" Lewis, Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck (James Boswell's son), Peter Pindar (James Wolcot), Mrs. (Amelia) Opie, Joanna Baillie, and Samuel Rogers.