George Frideric Handel | First edition of "Giulio Cesare", 1724

George Frideric Handel.

[Giulio Cesare] Julius Caesar: an Opera. Compos'd by G. Frederick Handel, of London, Gent., London: Cluer, [1724]

FIRST EDITION, [6], 118 pages, 8vo (21.3 x 13.1cm), illustrated engraved title-page, printed privilege, engraved index, some modern pencil annotations to front pastedown, bookseller's label to front free endpaper ("[H]arold Reeves..."), eighteenth-century calf, rebacked, a few tiny tears to laid-down title, browning and spotting to title, p.2 pagination cropped, a few pages trimmed to plate, tiny tear to lower margin of pp.105/106 and 111/112, last leaf slightly loose, corners restored, some wear to covers

VERY RARE. This is only the third copy offered for sale in these rooms in the last sixty years.

This is the rarest and arguably most desirable of all first editions of Handel's operas. Giulio Cesare, one of Handel's greatest dramatic masterpieces, was the first of his operas to be published by John Cluer, the composer possibly being attracted to Cluer's new method of printing music from engraved copper plates instead of stamped pewter plates as used by Walsh. The finely illustrated title-page was only used for this work.

LITERATURE:

Smith 1; RISM H 166; J. Simon (ed.), Handel. A Celebration of his Life and Times 1685-1759 (1985), p.131