THE only surviving autograph manuscript for Sergei Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony in E Minor, OP.27 is to be sold at Sotheby’s in London on May 20. Presumed lost since soon after the symphony’s premiere in St Petersburg in 1908, it was rediscovered nearly a century later in 2004 in the estate of a European private collector. It is estimated at £1-1.5 million.
This is one of the few autograph manuscripts of a symphony, central to the international orchestral repertory, remaining in private hands. In its 320 pages, it contains a wealth of new information, revealing Rachmaninov’s compositional processes when he was at the height of his powers, in one of his greatest works. There is even new unpublished material, unknown to Rachmaninov scholars and absent in any edition of the symphony.
UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £1,202,500