[Hob. III:37-42]. VI Quartetti a due Violini, Viola, e Violoncello. [Copyist manuscript]. [Set of parts]

[?]Italy, 1800. 4 volumes. Small folio (218 x 291 mm). Early flexible dark orange marbled boards with manuscript title label to uppers within decorative printed border. Notated in a professional hand on fine quality l12-stave rastrum-ruled laid paper.

Contents in order of appearance: 41(no. 5), 38 (no. 2), 37 (no. 1), 39 (no. 3), 42 (no. 6), and 40 (no. 4).

Violino primo: [i] (title), 40 pp.
Violino secondo: [i] (title), 38 pp.
Viola: [i] (title), 36 pp.
Violoncello: [i] (title), 36 pp.
With several additional leaves of blank rastrum-ruled paper.

Boards worn, faded, and abraded, with very small (truncated) portions of spine lacking. Occasional showthrough.

In very good internal condition overall. "A decade or so after the Op. 20 set came the fateful Op. 33, again comprising six quartets. It wasn't so much Haydn's fate of which these works proved full as a Mozart's: they prompted him to return to the string quartet and write his own first six masterpieces in the medium - the set that bear a more affectionate and admiring dedication to Haydn than does any great composer's dedicated to any other great composer ..." Hans Keller: The Great Haydn Quartets, p. 64. (Inventory #: 40069)