“Two manuscripts which had been missing for more than 100 years have been rediscovered in Tauranga,” states an unsigned article in Tuesday’s (7/18) New Zealand Herald. “The original music sheets were found in the library of the Bay of Plenty Symphonia,” a community orchestra that performs four concerts each year in Tauranga and one concert each year in another part of the Bay of Plenty region. “The 1906 manuscripts feature handwritten and signed music from English composer Gustav Holst. Until now, what had become of these manuscripts was a mystery. The manuscripts were found during a tidy-up of the symphonia’s sheet music library, 20,000 km from where they originated.… Orchestra member Bronya Dean said she contacted the Holst Archive in England and almost immediately received a reply excitedly saying that the signatures and handwriting were original and authentic.… The … most likely connection is the English flautist Stanley Farnsworth, who conducted a predecessor of the symphonia in the 1960s.… The symphonia plans to perform the music in Tauranga. In the case of Folk Songs from Somerset, this could be for the first time in more than a century.”
Posted July 20, 2017
