Die erste Walpurgisnacht. Ballade für Chor und Orchester, Gedichtet von Goethe ... Op. 60 ... Pr. 4 Thlr. Clavierauszug

Leipzig: Fr. Kistner [PN 1400], 1844. Folio. Modern mid-green boards with original publisher's wrappers laid down to both boards, title label gilt to spine. 1f. (recto title, verso printed excerpt from a letter from Goethe to Mendelssohn), [5]- 91, [i] (blank) pp. Text in German. Engraved.

With the overture arranged for piano 4-hands.

Annotations in pencil to several leaves.

Binding worn and soiled; corners bumped; wrappers with minor loss; free front endpaper slightly creased. Slightly worn and foxed; some corners with minor soiling; blank inner margin of title reinforced with narrow strip of paper; blank lower outer (truncated) corner of title and following leaf repaired; several leaves with tape repairs to blank margins. Ex-library, with small handstamp of the Städische Bühnen Erfurt Bibliothek to verso of title. First Edition. MWV D3, p. 78. Catalogue of the Mendelssohn Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Vol. III, 372. Hoboken Collection Vol. 10, 232. Krause p. 19, 28.

A secular cantata with text by Goethe, the present work treats efforts by the Druids to practice their springtime pagan rituals in the face of rising Christian forces. The original version was completed in 1831, first performed at the home of Mendelssohn's parents and then publicly on 10 January 1833 in Berlin at the Sing-Akademie, conducted by the composer. It was later revised in 1843 as a programmatic overture.

"The highlights of the 1843 subscription concerts included the première of the revised version of Die erste Walpurgisnacht on 2 February; among the audience was Berlioz, then in the midst of his first concert tour, who praised the score for its ‘apparent confusion that is art perfected’." R. Larry Todd in Grove Music Online. (Inventory #: 40519)