'Previously unheard' music by Sir Edward Elgar to go under hammer
A piece of music by English composer Sir Edward Elgar, which is thought to be an undiscovered melody never previously heard, will go under the hammer this month.
The ‘andante’ dating to 1924 was notated on musical manuscript and then signed by the great composer - who was also a Wolves fan.
He regularly cycled to matches from his home in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, and wrote what is believed to be the world's first football anthem, He Banged The Leather For Goal.
The manuscript features in Richard Winterton’s Library Sale at The Lichfield Auction Centre, Fradley Park, Staffordshire, on March 26.
Mr Winterton – auctioneer of BBC Bargain Hunt and Dickinson’s Real Deal – discovered the music paper tucked inside an autograph book, with signatures dated to 1923 and 1924.
They were all collected by Lydia Tabb, a matron at Barnardos, during her time fundraising for the charity.
Relatively little is known about Lydia – at one point she possibly lived in Chertsey, her maiden name was Probyn and in 1939 she married Herbert Edward Tabb, who was described in a contemporary newspaper wedding report as assistant superintendent at the school of handicrafts.
Lydia, who was born in 1897 and died in 1983, worked for Barnardos and at one point travelled to Australia on behalf of the charity.
She also had links to Godalming in Surrey but in her later years lived in a flat at Gravelly Hill, Birmingham.
Lydia’s great niece Linda Brewer and Linda’s sister Jane Coombs remember visiting her there as children.
Linda, from Solihull, said: “My dad would mow the lawn while we would sit with her eating sandwiches and watching the wrestling.
“But I don’t remember her ever mentioning the autograph book or the Elgar manuscript.
“It’s a bit of a mystery as to how Lydia compiled the signatures of so many famous and influential people and we would love to find out more.”
Sir Edward William Elgar (June 2 1857 – February 23 1934) is regarded as one of England’s greatest composers, with many of his compositions featuring in classical concert repertoires all over the world.
The autograph album dates from 1923 and contains around 69 signatures including five Prime Ministers (Herbert Henry Asquith, David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill) and four authors (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells, Sir JM Barrie and Rudyard Kipling). Elgar’s last large-scale composition from the First World War period was musical settings of verses by Rudyard Kipling.
Other signatures in the book include those of Charlie Chaplin, the future King George VI (1923 was the year he married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon) and many important figures from the First World War including Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the supreme Allied Commander during WW1, and Field Marshal Earl Haig.
The Elgar manuscript and the autograph collection are being sold as two separate lots in Richard Winterton’s Library Sale from noon on March 26.
Viewing is on March 23 from 9.30am to 12pm, March 25 from 9am to 4pm and on the morning of sale from 8.30am.
