Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen für Tenor-Solo, Chor und Orchester / Studien-Partitur [revised version]. Full score, in study format, of the German composer's cantata in its revised version. Upright quarto. Original wrappers.  Lithograph.  No PN.  Title (verso blank); dedication to Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, with instrument list to verso; 1–280 pp.  Inscription in German (translated here), "For Dimitri Mitropoulos / with heartfelt wishes and greetings / Werner Egk."  10.75 x 7.5 inches (27.7 x 19.1 cm).  Moderate wear to wrappers; spine lost to foot; lower right corner bumped; overall in fine condition.

The author of the text is not specified. The composer wrote it himself "after an ancient Indian fable." "Werner Egk was born Werner Joseph Mayer in Auchsesheim [now part of Donauwörth, Bavaria] in 1901."  As an adult, "he adopted the nom de plume Werner Egk, an acronym based on his wife’s name: ‘Elisabeth, geborene Karl’ (Elisabeth, née Karl).  After supporting himself and his small family through private music teaching, Egk got a job in radio, which remained a lifetime interest.  In early post-war Germany, Egk managed to avoid being implicated in the Nazi regime.  Although one of the most successful composers of the Third Reich, his [relative] lack of political activity and his more progressive musical style freed him from the need for denazification.  Instead, he was embraced as a key figure free of the taint of Nazism, capable of rebuilding Germany’s musical world.  In the early 1950s Egk worked as Professor of Composition and Director at the Berlin Music Academy, and later directed the Bavarian State Opera." (Music and the Holocaust, holocaustmusic.ort.org)

Dimitri Mitropoulos was Greece’s most prolific conductor and New York Philharmonic Music Director from 1949-1958.  Widely regarded as one of the most significant conductors of the twentieth century, he is best remembered for his significant recorded legacy and for his commitment in bringing new compositions to the stage of major symphony orchestras.  Indeed, it is thanks to his efforts that many of our current symphonic standards made their way into the repertory.  He gave World and American premiers of seminal works such as Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, as well as other major works by Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and many others.  His personal collection has been held in private hands since his death in 1960, when it passed to conductor James Dixon, his student and protégé.  Mitropoulos came to consider Dixon his son, introducing him to conductors and performing arts institutions around the world, jumpstarting his career.  When Mitropoulos died in 1960 he left all his belongings, including his scores, to Dixon.  The bulk of the musical library has been subsequently gifted to the University of Iowa’s music library, but a selection of rare items have been selected to be offered for sale exclusively by Schubertiade Music & Arts.  These examples, many inscribed to the conductor from composers or associates, have only occasional markings from the conductor himself who committed all music to memory before his first rehearsal of the repertoire – a highly unusual method!  Some of these scores, however, were also subsequently used by James Dixon as part of his working reference library for many years and include his occasional markings.