Fancy on a Bach Air for solo cello. Autograph musical manuscript of the complete work by this award-winning American composer by CORIGLIANO, John b. 1938

Oblong folio (28 x 42 cms). 1 page. Notated in pencil on 16-stave Aztec brand paper. Undated, but 1996.

For solo cello, with music encompassing both bass and soprano clefs, mostly unbarred.

Signed at upper right, with autograph titling "Fancy on a Bach Aria" at head. Fancy on a Bach Air was commissioned by Judy and Robert Goldberg and first performed by Yo-Yo Ma at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, 24 August 1997.

From the composer's website:

"Fancy on a Bach Air began in celebration and ended in memoriam. My cousin introduced me to his colleague Robert Goldberg and his wife Judy, avid music lovers both. We became fast friends. When, later, they asked me to compose a piece for their 25th wedding anniversary, I suggested that instead of a single writer they ask a group of composers to write variations. And what better theme to choose than the venerable melody of the variations that bore their name? Bach would surely approve. Their close friends Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax agreed to play the variations. Then tragedy struck. Robert succumbed to a virulent cancer and died all too soon. Judy's spirit and love led her to transform what might have been a requiem into a celebration of her husbands' life, and Ma and Ax performed the set of Variations preceded by the Bach theme in Boston where the Goldberg's live. My 'Goldberg Variation,' Fancy on a Bach Air, is for unaccompanied cello. It transforms the gentle arches of Bach's theme into slowly soaring arpeggi of almost unending phrase-lengths. Its dual inspiration was the love of two extraordinary people and the solo cello suites of a great composer - both of them strong, long-lined, passionate, eternal, and for me, definitive of all that is beautiful in life."

"John is easily one of the great composers of the 20th and 21st Century. Besides being beautifully constructed and incredibly well written for the players and listeners, John's music achieves that consummate goal of changing people's live, moving them beyond their normal realms and enabling them to exist in an enhanced space. This, for me, is what great art is meant to do." - Marin Alsop

"I am deeply honored to have worked with Mr. Corigliano on two of his pieces - he is one of our generation's truly distinguished composers, and his music has already entered the repertoire. I believe it will be played as long as musicians make music, and I am proud to have played a small part in his creative process." - Emanuel Ax

"John Corigliano is one of the most talented composers I know of today." - Leonard Bernstein

"One of the most talented composers on the scene today - the real thing. His music is individual, imaginative, expertly crafted, and aurally quite stunning." - Aaron Copland

"John Corigliano is simply one of our great American composers. He has both a vision for his music and the craft to back it up. As a teacher he is passionate about transmitting knowledge of his art form to students as well as to the general audience. I feel fortunate to have had John write "Phantasmagoria" and "Etude on a Bach Aria" for me. Most of all, though, I feel lucky that John and I are living in the same era." - Yo-Yo Ma

"The American John Corigliano continues to add to one of the richest, most unusual, and most widely celebrated bodies of work any composer has created over the last forty years. Corigliano's scores, now numbering over one hundred ... have been performed and recorded by many of the most prominent orchestras, soloists, and chamber musicians in the world." Naxos website

John Corigliano's music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by many of the most prominent orchestras, soloists, and chamber musicians in the world. His honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 2, the Grawemeyer Award for his Symphony No. 1 (given over 300 performances worldwide), the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Original Score (The Red Violin), and, of his five Grammy Awards, three for Best Contemporary Composition (Symphony No. 1, String Quartet, and Mr. Tambourine Man.).