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.