On 3 November 2009, the Juilliard School.

Gottlieb, Jane

On 3 November 2009, the Juilliard School celebrated the completion of its new room for the Juilliard Manuscript Collection with a special concert in Alice Tully Hall, featuring performances of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge and the last scene of Le nozze di Figaro, with musicological commentary by L. Michael Griffel and Christoph Wolff, respectively. On this occasion the school also announced that board chairman, Bruce Kovner, had donated two additional manuscripts to the school: the engraved proof-copy vocal score of Mendelssohn's Elijah, with extensive corrections and annotations by the composer, and Beethoven's corrected manuscript of his "Kreutzer" Sonata for violin and piano, op. 47.

At the time of its auction sale, the Elijah score was described by Sotheby's as "a striking and important item: a proof of the vocal score of one of Mendelssohn's greatest works, extensively and heavily revised by the composer, following the first performances." The score of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata is the only surviving complete manuscript of this renowned work. It is a complex manuscript, in the hand of several copyists, with extensive revisions by the composer as well as annotations by his pupil, Ferdinand Ries. Formerly in the archives of Simrock, the publisher of the first edition of the work, the manuscript was acquired by Henle in 1954, and resided in their archives until its sale at Sotheby's in 2007.

Digital copies of both scores have been added to the Juilliard Manuscript Collection Web site: http://www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org (accessed 18 November 2009).

JANE GOTTLIEB

The Juilliard School