[SHEET MUSIC] La pluie de perles : valse brillante

Sydney : Published by H. Marsh & Co., 490/2 & 484 George Street, 1853. Folio (340 x 260 mm), front wrapper with lithographed lettering in decorative fonts, with the ownership inscription of J. B. Steel (1853) struck out and inscribed below by the music’s second owner ‘E. J. M. Stewart, Bathurst, 1854’; fully contemporary linen backstrip; 8 pages of music notation (arrangement for pianoforte); a few early pencilled annotations, light spotting; a very good copy.

The following notice appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 19 July 1853:

‘NEW MUSICAL PUBLICATIONS. PUBLISHED, This Day, by the undersigned. Osborne’s ” La Pluie de Perles.” (“Decidedly the most graceful composition of the day.”) Also, The Dew Drop Waltzes, by D’Albert Madoline, a new Song, by S. Nelson. In the Press, The Marian Waltzes, by Henry Marsh. Argo Schottische, by Henry Marsh. Just received, a splendid assortment of semi-cottage, cottage, semi-cabinet Pianofortes, with all the latest improvements. HENRY MARSH AND CO., Wholesale Music Sellers and Importers, 490 1/2, George-street.’

Devon-born Henry Charles Nibbs Marsh (1823-1906), composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, music seller and publisher, arrived in Sydney in 1849 to join his older brother Stephen Hale Marsh (1805-1888) – also a talented composer and musician – who had arrived seven years earlier. Henry and Stephen were two of the most prominent and influential figures in the musical world of the colony right throughout the gold rush period and up into the early 1870s, when they both departed for California.

La pluie de perles is an instrumental piece by Irish composer George Alexander Osborne (1806-1893).

Trove locates copies of this sheet music in four libraries (NLA; SLV; Libraries Tasmania; Caroline Simpson Library), although none of the catalogue records reflect the exact publication date.