The Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Library is pleased to announce the acqui­si­tion of an eighteenth-century scribal score (297 pages) of George Frid­eric Handel’s three-act opera Berenice, copied by a con­tem­po­rary Han­del copy­ist (“S2”) from the composer’s auto­graph man­u­script. The scribal score is com­plete but for Berenice’s aria “Avver­tite mie pupille” and opens with the title page read­ing, “Berenice Opera Com­posta per il Sgr G:F: Han­del / Com­min­ci­ato Decembr: 15 1736.” Handel’s opera seria con­cern­ing the life and loves of Queen Cleopa­tra Berenice of Egypt around 80 B.C.E. was based on an Ital­ian libretto by the Flo­ren­tine poet Anto­nio Salvi, who enti­tled it Berenice, regina d’Egitto. The opera pre­miered at London’s Covent Gar­den in May 1737. The present score was in the library of Charles Jen­nens and bears his shelf­mark. Jen­nens was Handel’s patron and is per­haps best known as the libret­tist of Mes­siah. The score is for voices and orches­tra (strings, oboes, bas­soons, and con­tinuo), with fig­ured bass through­out and a few addi­tional fig­ures added by Charles Jen­nens. The com­plete man­u­script can be viewed online here.

The man­u­script will com­ple­ment the Library’s James S. Hall Col­lec­tion of George Frid­eric Han­del, in the Depart­ment of Rare Books and Spe­cial Col­lec­tions. Among eighteenth-century scribal scores in the man­u­scripts por­tion of the Hall-Handel Col­lec­tion (C0640) are those for the ora­to­rios Bels­haz­zar, John Balus, and Joseph, copied in about 1745 by John Christo­pher Smith (the elder) for Fred­er­ick, Prince of Wales.

The Berenice man­u­script, along with sev­eral man­u­scripts and early printed edi­tions from the Hall-Handel Col­lec­tion will be exhib­ited in the Library’s Eighteenth-Century Window. The exhi­bi­tion is free and open to the pub­lic, and is on view from Feb­ru­ary 21 through March 4, week­days from 9 am to 4:45 pm, and week­ends from noon to 5 pm. Addi­tion­ally, Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity will host the Amer­i­can Han­del Society’s bien­nial fes­ti­val from Feb­ru­ary 21 through Feb­ru­ary 23. The 2013 fes­ti­val will fea­ture three con­certs of Handel’s works per­formed by musi­cians affil­i­ated with the Uni­ver­sity, two con­fer­ence events, and the exhi­bi­tion in Fire­stone Library. For more infor­ma­tion about the fes­ti­val, please click here.

Han­del, Berenice. Not to be repro­duced with­out per­mis­sion of the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Library.