Description
Provenance: Originally part of the collection of Adeodatus Josephus Philippus du Beine de Malchamps (1717-1803), also known as Baron du Beine (or Baron von DuBeine). Du Beine’s library was auctioned by his son in 1813, and was at least partly acquired by Archduke Rudolph of Austria (1788-1831).
Description: An oblong manuscript copy (230x320mm) containing thirteen sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti.
Rastrum: Stave size: 10mm; stave distance: 12mm; total stave span: 176mm.
Watermark: Tre lune motif (selenometry 76/8), the letters ‘GFA’ and ‘REAL’, and additional illegible letters (possibly ‘OD’). Similar in selenometry measurements to watermark 67 in Tyson’s catalogue (1783/5).
Titles: The title page reads ‘Sonate / per il / Clavi-Cembalo / Del Sig:re Dom: Scarlati’. The individual sonatas are marked with a numbering system which has not yet been studied with the attention it may deserve: while the first sonata is marked ‘No. 24’, sonatas 2-13 are marked Nos. 28-32, 34, 36-40, 42, in that order (suggesting that Nos. 25-27, 33, 35, and 41 were not copied from the presumed exemplar into this collection). Furthermore, the presence of several ‘Anno’ markings at the incipit of sonatas 2-13 – exactly the same as those found in Berlin 19681-2 – reveal without a doubt the kinship between these two collections.
As in Vienna Q15113, a later hand has added the number ’14’ in red ink despite this collection only containing thirteen sonatas.
Copyist: A single professional Viennese copyist. Choi notes that the copyist of this volume is the same as the copyist of most of Vienna Q15118.
Comments: While most of the sonatas in Q15116 are in the same order as in Vienna Q11432, the same goes for Berlin 19681-2 (which also contains the Anno markings). The exact relationship between these three sources is the subject of ongoing research.
Date: Choi dates this manuscript to the 1750s or 1760s, but the obviously erroneous ‘Anno 1765’ over K487 indicates that this copy was made after 1765; perhaps – as suggested by the watermark evidence – as late as the 1780s.
