Achille et Polixène, Tragédie...mis en Musique par P. Collasse...Et le premier Acte par feu Mre J. B. de Lully" - FROM THE COLLECTION OF ARNOLD DOLMETSCH by Lully, Jean Baptiste. (1632–1687) & Collasse, Pascal. (1649-1709). [Dolmetsch, Arnold. (1858–1940)] - 1687

Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1687. First. Used; Like New/Used; Like New. Achille et Polixène, Tragédie Dont le Prologue & les quatre derniers Actes ont esté mis en Musique par P. Collasse...Et le premier Acte par feu Mre J. B. de Lully.'  Upright folio.   Approx. 10 x 15 inches (25 x 38 cm.).[2]; i-xxxviii; 1–316 pp.  Mottled calf binding.  This copy from the collection of Arnold Dolmetsch, Dolmetsch Library stamp and pencil shelfmark ("II D 39") to verso of title.  Bookseller's printed notice to upper cover.  Correction slip to p. 271, early ownership inscription to front pastedown reading "ce livre apartient a Mademoiselle de Marin."  Occasional modern pencil annotations.  Splitting at joints, scuffing to covers, some damp-staining.  Overall in fine condition.   RISM L 2930. 
Arnold Dolmetsch was an important force in the 20th-century revival of interest in early music.  His scholarship and performances with his family helped to resurrect forgotten instruments such as the viola da gamba, and as an expert instrument maker he crafted a psaltery for Yeats and a lute for Joyce.  Dolmetsch is even mentioned briefly in a passage from the "Eumaeus" episode of Ulysses, and the George Moore novel Evelyn Innes was based on his life.  He accumulated an impressive circle of important and influential friends as well as a legendary library of manuscript and print scores.
Achille et Polixene, Jean-Baptiste Lully's last opera, premiered at the Palais Royale in Paris on 7 November 1687, eight months after Lully's death on March 22 of that year. Since the composer had only finished the overture and first act, the score was completed by Pascal Colasse, Lully's secretary and student, to a text by Jean Galbert de Campistron based on events in Virgil's Aeneid. The libretto for this opera differs from those of Lully's earlier works with Philippe Quinault.  Typically, Lully would begin his operas with a lively prologue, but this work has a somber prologue in which the Muses lament the king's desire for military expansion. Another difference is the tragic and somber ending of this opera in Act V. Lully usually ended his operas with a rousing ensemble number but this opera closes with the suicide of the heroine. The end of Act IV, the wedding scene, does contain a vibrant ensemble number at its close which would be more in keeping with a typical finale of one of Lully's operas.