Notes: An unknown Mendelssohn autograph

Abstract

• Two volumes of music which once belonged to Queen Victoria have recently been acquired and reunited with the Royal Music Library. They are uniformly bound in half morocco with marbled boards. This simple style had been widely popular for music since the late eighteenth century. As usual, a label on the front names the owner - in this case 'The Queen'. The lettering on the spines shows that the volumes occupied 14th and 18th place in a series devoted entirely to piano duets. As this series was not deposited in the British Museum with the main music collection in 1911, it was presumably not housed with it but kept to hand for domestic use. The fate of the bulk of the volumes is unknown, but the two that have now come to light passed into the possession of the Queen's youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice.