424 - Mozart, "Il Don Giovanni", vocal score, Hamburg, August Böhme, title vignette, probably circa 1820

Mozart, "Il Don Giovanni", vocal score, Hamburg, August Böhme, title vignette, probably circa 1820 Paper. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, "Il dissoluto punito osia Il Don Giovanni", dramma giocoso in two acts, piano vocal score, "Ridotto per il Pianoforto", engraved music with vocal part and underlaid text in Italian and German, landscape format, published by Johann August Böhme in Hamburg, probably circa 1820, undated. Engraved title page with oval vignette of the final scene, the Commendatore in armour and Don Giovanni at the laid table, a sword on the floor, signed in the vignette "Wolf sc.", imprint "Presso Giovanni Augusto Böhme in Hamburgo". Half binding, boards covered in black, spine of brown leather, oval paper label on the front board, inscribed by hand "Mozart" and "Don Juan". Condition commensurate with age, pages partly creased and slightly torn, slightly stained, binding renewed, rubbed. 24.5x35.5x4 cm (HxWxD). Don Giovanni, K. 527, was first performed on 29 October 1787 at Count Nostitz's National Theatre in Prague; the libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. In the finale the stone statue of the Commendatore appears for supper, and Don Giovanni is swallowed up by the earth; this scene underlies the title vignette, engraved by Wolf after a design by Kininger. Johann August Böhme, 1766 to 1847, had trained with Breitkopf in Leipzig and on 1 October 1794 founded a music shop with publishing house in Hamburg, which published works by Mozart, Spohr and Romberg; in 1839 his son took over the business, which later merged with the publisher August Cranz. A piano vocal score transfers the orchestral part of an opera to two staves for piano and retains the vocal parts; in the 19th century it was the means by which amateurs got to know operas at home at the piano, and the first piano vocal score of Don Giovanni appeared in Vienna as early as 1788. Such engraved music prints of the early 19th century count among musicalia and Mozartiana.