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Paper to be presented at the 10th Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland/Aontas Ceoleolaíochta na hÉireann, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland, 15-17 June 2012
An, until recently, unknown handwritten manuscript by the Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) came to light in the summer of 2008. The piece is entitled Deuxième Ballade pour flûte et piano ou flûte, orchestre à corde, piano et batterie, and is an arrangement of Martin’s Ballade pour saxophone alto, orchestre à cordes piano et batterie. Martin wrote six pieces he called “ballades”, putting the 19th-century term, traditionally referring to a type of one-movement piano piece with lyrical and dramatic narrative qualities, to a completely different use. The newly discovered piece is undoubtedly written by Martin, as the composer’s handwriting is clearly identifiable, however, it is unclear when this arrangement was made. The title page indicates the year 1938, however, the question one could reasonably pose is why then the recently discovered flute ballad is entitled “Deuxième”, since it would appear to in fact precede the hitherto known Ballad for flute and piano the composer wrote in 1939.
This paper seeks to hypothesize a location and date for the manuscript with considerable, as possible, precision. The focus shall be mostly on internal evidence of Martin’s manuscripts. However, the composer’s correspondence and other external available evidence that could provide sufficient clues as to the manuscript’s chronology will also be considered. The paper aims to raise questions regarding the use of watermarks and paper type in the chronology of music manuscripts, and the degree to which one can rely on (auto)biographical evidence in this type of research.