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Gluck, Christoph Willibald (1714-1787)
Armide. Drame Héroique. [Full orchestral score].
Des Lauriers: Paris, c 1785. Third edition, first issue (made from first edition plates). Engraved. Large quarto. 279 pp. Brown marbled paper boards. Red edges. A very good copy on the whole. Music clean, crisp, and with a good impression. Title page with a little wear and stamps at bottom (evidently a former copy of the Conservatoire library). Title page appears better than in scan. Repaired tear at bottom of p. 213 (all music legible). Front board detaching. Spine worn with missing patch of marbled paper.As per Hopkinson's bibliography of Gluck's works, the earliest editions of Armide all rely on the same set of plates. The first edition was published by the Bureau du Journal de Musique in 1777. The Bureau then sold the plates to Lemarchand, which published the second edition some time after 1778. Lemarchand in turn sold the plates to Des Lauriers about five years later. Des Lauriers used those original plates, along with a newly engraved title page, for the third edition, of which this is a first issue. (Des Lauriers would eventually publish no fewer than nine issues of the third edition).
MUS-13889$750