What If ...? [Autograph manuscript] by HOIBY, Lee 1926-2011 - 1985: Song for voice and piano. Text by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

1985. Folio. Unbound. 5 pp. Notated in pencil on 16-stave paper. A working manuscript, variously dated "12-29-85," "12-31," "Jan 2,3 86," "12-28-85," and "1-1-86."

Together with:
- Two photographic copies of the fair copy of the manuscript with occasional corrections and additions in blue pencil. "As a composer Hoiby was a modern Romantic from the lineage of Barber and Menotti. The influence of the former is evident in his warm lyricism, while that of the latter is found in a propensity for light, genial humour. Though much of his music is characterized by a disarming diatonic simplicity, his ambitious works tend towards greater harmonic and textural complexity. Interest in his music has centred chiefly around his operatic, choral and vocal works, which seem to stimulate his most deeply felt efforts. Some of these works... achieve an eloquence comparable to the later works of Barber. With greater critical acceptance of more conservative musical styles from the early 1980s onwards, Hoiby's music has been performed and recorded with increasing frequency." Richard Jackson and Walter G. Simmons in Grove Music Online.