Symphony No. 1 [Colin Davis' Score]

London: International Music Company Ltd, 1967. Soft cover. Near Fine. Colin Davis' full score of Knussen's first symphony written when the composer was just 15 and 'Commissioned by Rediffusion Television Limited'. The title page notes that the work was composed between May and November 1996 and then 'Revised October-December 1967.' Pink card wrappers, no annotations but one use of tippex to excise a marginal note. Knussen's has been described as 'a virtuosic essay in serialist aesthetics'. This score is from a large collection of scores that belonged to the conductor Sir Colin Davis, many annotated and used in performance, almost all from the post-war period and including at least two examples of scores from which he conducted the work's premier: Thea Musgrave's Clarinet Concerto (Davis was himself originally a clarinettist by training) and Malcolm Williamson's The Stone Wall which Davis premiered at the Last Night of the Proms in September 1971. Most of the scores are full size performance versions, several including this one very large indeed in order to accommodate the scoring of a post-Schoenberg orchestra. Davis achieved global recognition for his conducting with a particular enthusiasm for the music of Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett. Near Fine 1967