A Harold Overture

M-H 2/3-1

Composer’s autograph  full score. Black inked. Dark Green leatherette bound volume 35.25cm x 26.5cm x  0.5cm. Embossed on the front cover in gold: ‘A Harold Overture. Full Score.’  1st recto signed: ‘G.W.L. Marshall-Hall. The University Melbourne Victoria.  Australia.’ 2nd recto inscribed ‘A Harold Overture. (Founded on the music drama  by G.W.L. Marshall-Hall.) ‘1888.’ Both these inscriptions of recto 1 and recto  2 appear to be in the composer’s hand. The 2nd verso holds the following verse  in M-H’s hand: ‘To my Instruments / O gentle masons, with how sweet an art / Ye  build your fairy fabric on the heart, / Deleting the world’s bitterness and  pain! / Alas! / Like morning-dreams ye come, and so depart /And with a sigh I  waken once again.’ 50 paginations in pencil with two blank endpages. Signed at  p.1 ‘A Harold Overture. (founded upon the music drama) by G.W.L.  Marshall-Hall,’ in the composer’s hand. The final page, p.50, ends with the  pencilled inscription in M-H’s hand: ‘G.W.L. M-Hall. Mildura. Blythe St.  Brunswick.’

Scored for:  piccolo, flute, 2 hautboys, 2 clarinet in B, 2 bassoons, double bassoon, 4  horns in F, 4 trumpets in C, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, bass tuba,  kettledrum, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, 2 harps, strings.