$1.3 Million Buys Concerto in A Minor by Schumann

An Oxford book dealer paid a record $1.3 million for a single musical work today--the only known autographed manuscript of the only completed piano concerto by Robert Schumann, the auction house Sotheby’s said.

Albi Rosenthal paid the money for Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, one of the greatest piano concertos written since Beethoven.

Rosenthal said he was prepared to bid “certainly 20 to 30% higher” for the manuscript. He bought the work on behalf of a European library, where he said it will be available for scholars.

Stravinsky’s autographed manuscript of “Rite of Spring” previously held the record for a single piece of music, selling for $518,100 on Nov. 11, 1982.

Mozart’s autographed manuscript of nine symphonies, Nos. 22 to 30, sold at Sotheby’s on May 22, 1987, for $3.69 million, the most for a music manuscript and for a post-medieval manuscript of any kind.

For 1 1/2 hours until the Schumann concerto came up for bidding, the record for a single musical score was held by an autographed manuscript of J. S. Bach’s Asceciontide Cantata “Auf Christi Himmelfahrt Allein,” one of his major cantatas, which sold for $673,500.

Schumann began his Piano Concerto in A Minor, the only piano concerto he completed, in 1841, the year after he married Clara Wieck.