PONCHIELLI AMILCARE: (1834-1886) Italian Composer. Best remembered for his opera La Gioconda (1876) based on a play ...

PONCHIELLI AMILCARE: (1834-1886) Italian Composer. Best remembered for his opera La Gioconda (1876) based on a play by Victor Hugo. An exceptional and rare M.S., `Ponchielli´, seven pages, oblong folio (12 x 9) stave paper, n.p., n.d. Signed by Ponchielli to the heading of the front page. The full autograph working manuscript is in the hand of Ponchielli and corresponds to the complete score of his work Dio Amore as he entitles to the heading. He also annotates to the front page heading `Parole di Silvio Pellico´ (''Words by Silvio Pellico''). Ponchielli has penned over 90 bars of music, on three staves, adding tempos alongside and the Romanza voice text beneath the musical notes, bearing also multiple annotations, crossed words and amendments. Attractively bound within modern decorative boards featuring sea horses and with a gilt stamped leather title to the front. Small overall minor age wear and staining otherwise VG Dio Amore! is a work for choir and pianoforte by Ponchielli, opus 277. Musical critics have widely commented about this Romanza that it highlights the innate sense of Ponchielli's theatre as well as his uncommon lyrical vein. Silvio Pellico (1789-1854) Italian Writer, Poet and Patriot active in the Italian unification.