Moritz Hauptmann: Autograph Musical Manuscript: “J! – O! – Ach! – im Canon.” 
Autograph manuscript, signed and with autograph title at head. A 4-voice canon in F Major, notated in brown ink on twelve staves, with a number of alterations in the texts visible. 1 page, 25.5 X 33 cm, 12-stave paper. Verso features an additional four measures on the bass notes G-A-D-E, a reference to the Danish composer Niels W. Gade.

Verso: “GADE”

Credit: Gabriel Boyers, Schubertiade Music & Arts LLC.

Currently (January 5, 2014) for sale from Schubertiade.

Moritz Hauptmann

The undated manuscript (presumably October 1845) is by Moritz Hauptmann, and relates to a similar copy (“Von Ihrem Sie herzlich liebendem M Hauptmann;” transposed, dated 12 October, 1845) in Moser’s biography: Andreas Moser, Joseph Joachim: Ein Lebensbild, (2 vols.), Berlin: Verlag der Deutschen Brahms-Gesellschaft, vol. 1: 1908, opp. p. 69.

Boyers lists the manuscript as “O! – O! – Och – im Canon,” with an erroneous attribution re: the Joachim-Brahms counterpoint exchange:

“The present canon is a previously unrecorded manuscript and it is possible that it relates to the famous Joachim-Brahms counterpoint exchange. “As unique in the annals of music history as their friendship is the exchange of studies in counterpoint carried on by Brahms and Joachim during their late twenties. First suggested by Brahms in a letter of February 26, 1856, the musical correspondence was active until the end of July, to judge by references made to it in their published correspondence. It was resumed during June and July, 1857, and again during the spring of 1860 and summer of 1861. Thereafter there is no further mention of counterpoint studies, although they continued to advise each other in connection with their compositions.” (Leonard Ellinwood, “The Brahms-Joachim Exercises in Counterpoint,” AMS Bulletin Sep. 1948, p. 50-51) $4000.00″