Musical Manuscript No. 2575 from the Romanian Academy Library in Bucharest
Musical Manuscript No. 2575 from the Romanian Academy Library in Bucharest

Summary/Abstract: The manuscript is a collection of piano pieces on the outer cover of which is written Des chansons Vallaques sur le Piano-Forte (sic). The Author-Musician, whose name is unknown, is probably an independent pianist who provides on demand musical services at distinguished soirées enlivened by dance and music in Central Europe. His notebook consists of two sections. The first is an aide-mémoire of the musician-pianist. It is mostly written in black ink and consists of 72 carefully written piano pieces, of which five Greek pieces, one Albanian, another, very large, Turkish, 48 presumably Romanian popular pieces, and various other salon pieces with East European circulation. The second part of the manuscript contains musical sketches and is written in ink and in pencil by different people. These are romances with lyrics in French and Romanian alternately; attempts at notation from hearing of some popular pieces probably performed by a popular musician; vocal pieces for two voices in parallel thirds and sixths; a few other musical fragments the pencil-writing of which is partially illegible. The end of my paper outlines the author’s profile: an independent Viennese musician... It includes observations about the pieces in the manuscript as well as some hypotheses regarding the tendencies that seem to emerge in the salon music of the Wallachian elites in the 1820s.

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