Partitur. 8vo. 3 volumes from the Library of Dimitri Mitropoulos. All volumes unsigned/marked by him but with the earlier ownership stamp, bookplate and autograph signature to each volume of August Reuss (1871 - 1935). Uniformly bound in quarter crimson leather over textured crimson boards, titles in gilt to spines. General toning, boards lightly worn, overall fine. As follows

 

Symphonische Dichtungen für großes Orchester / 1. Nr. 1-4. - Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne (nach V. Hugo). Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo. Les Préludes (nach Lamartine). Orphée. 397 pp. [PN] V.A.517.

Symphonische Dichtungen für großes Orchester / 2 Nr. 5-8. Prométhée. Mazeppa (nach V. Hugo). Festklänge. Héroïde funèbre. 407 pp. [PN] V.A.518.

Symphonische Dichtungen für großes Orchester / 3 Nr. 9-12. Hungaria. Hamlet. Hunnenschlacht (nach Kaulbach). Die Ideale (nach Schiller). 386 pp. [PN] V.A.519.

German composer August Reuß was born in Liliendorf, Moravia and worked as Kapellmeister in Magdeburg and Augsburg. In 1909, he settled in Munich as a freelance musician and was co-founder of the Trapp School of Music (1927), the forerunner of today's Richard-Strauss-Konservatorium München and worked there as a teacher of composition. In 1929, he was appointed to the Akademie der Tonkünste, of which he remained a member and teacher until his death.  The main focus of his compositional work was chamber music and song, supplemented by symphonic poems and two stage works. His often austere, sensitive tonal language is similar to his contemporaries Max Reger and Hans Pfitzner, in clearly thought-out forms, idiosyncratic voice leading and pithy harmony.

Dimitri Mitropoulos was Greece’s most prolific conductor and New York Philharmonic Music Director from 1949-1958.  Widely regarded as one of the most significant conductors of the twentieth century, he is best remembered for his significant recorded legacy and for his commitment in bringing new compositions to the stage of major symphony orchestras.  Indeed, it is thanks to his efforts that many of our current symphonic standards made their way into the repertory.  He gave World and American premiers of seminal works such as Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, as well as other major works by Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and many others.  His personal collection has been held in private hands since his death in 1960, when it passed to conductor James Dixon, his student and protégé.  Mitropoulos came to consider Dixon his son, introducing him to conductors and performing arts institutions around the world, jumpstarting his career.  When Mitropoulos died in 1960 he left all his belongings, including his scores, to Dixon.  The bulk of the musical library has been subsequently gifted to the University of Iowa’s music library, but a selection of rare items have been selected to be offered for sale exclusively by Schubertiade Music & Arts.  These examples, many inscribed to the conductor from composers or associates, have only occasional markings from the conductor himself who committed all music to memory before his first rehearsal of the repertoire - a highly unusual method!  Some of these scores, however, were also subsequently used by James Dixon as part of his working reference library for many years and include his occasional markings.