Manuscript for Agnus Dei - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

[PERGOLESI, Giovanni Battista (1710-1736)]. Manuscript for an Agnus Dei in the hand of 'Copyist No. 2' (Tobia Nicotra), [probably 20th C].

Four pages (213 x 290mm), bifolium, 10 staves per page, (hole to second leaf affecting a couple of notes, split to lower bifolium hinge). Provenance: Edwin Franko Goldman collection.

49 bars for chorus (SATB) and continuo (spinet), inscription at the end 'Gio: Batta Pergolesi – Laus Deo 1732 / a Fra Bernardo da Messina'. Provenance: Edwin Franko Goldman collection.

An intriguing forgery, once thought to belong to the hotly debated Pergolesi canon. The manuscript is listed by Brook and Paymer among the counterfeit Pergolesi manuscripts created by the prolific forger Tobia Nicotra (B.S. Brook and M.E. Paymer, 'The Pergolesi Hand: A Calligraphic Study', Notes, vol. 38, no 3 (March 1982), pp. 550-578).

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