RUSSIAN MUSIC ARCHIVES IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY: AN OVERVIEWAuthor(s): Chris BanksSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 53, No. 3, Russia (July-September 2006), pp. 194-199Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23510745 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 11:52

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML) is collaboratingwith JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fontes Artis Musicae.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RUSSIAN MUSIC ARCHIVES IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY: AN OVERVIEW

Chris Banks1

English Abstract

The British Library's Music Collections holds over 3,500 catalogue records for music

published in Russia, the earliest item dating from 1765. Printed music from the Royal Philharmonic Society collection includes significant Russian orchestral works. Among the Library's music manuscript collections are a number of importnat Russian compo

sitions including the autograph manuscript of six of the seven pieces of Borodin's

Petite Suite and Vaslav Nijinsky's choreographic score to Debussy's Prelude à l'après midi d'un faune.

French Abstract

Les collections musicales de la British Library comptent à leur catalogue plus de

3.500 notices de musique publiée en Russie, le document le plus ancien datant de

1765. La musique imprimée provenant des collections de la Royal Philharmonie

Society inclut des œuvres symphoniques russes significatives. Parmi les fonds de

musique manuscrite de la bibliothèque figurent un certain nombre de compositions russes d'importance, dont le manuscrit autographe de six des sept pièces de la Petite

suite de Borodine et la partition chorégraphique de Nijinsky pour le Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune de Debussy.

German Abstract

Die Musiksammlung der British Library enthält über 3.500 Katalogeinträge mit

Musik, die in Russland veröffentlicht wurden mit dem frühesten Nachweis von 1765.

Die Sammlung der königlichen Philharmonischen Gesellschaft enthält auch bedeu

tende russische Orchesterwerke als gedruckte Musik. Unter den Musik

manuskripten der Bibliothek sind eine Reihe wichtiger russischer Kompositionen wie die Autographen von sechs der sieben Stücke Borodins Petite Suite und Vaslav

Nijinskys choregraphische Partitur zu Debussys Prelude â l'après-midi d'un faune.

The British Library's Music Collections (formerly known as the Music

Library) is responsible for the Library's collections of over one and one half million items of printed music. Items received by legal deposit continue to form the largest part of our printed music acquisitions and these are supple mented by extensive purchases of foreign and antiquarian printed music, and

1. Chris Banks is Head of Music Collections at the British Library. This is a slightly updated version of a conference paper given in Moscow in 2000. Lists to accompany the presentation were

given to delegates in Moscow.

194

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RUSSIAN MUSIC ARCHIVES IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY: AN OVERVIEW 195

by donation. The library's collection of post-1500 music and music-related man

uscripts amounts to over 100,000 individual manuscripts bound together in in excess of 12,000 volumes (manuscripts from the 15th century and earlier have remained with the Department of Manuscripts). Manuscripts are acquired by gift, by bequest, and by purchase from private individuals, specialist dealers, and through the auction houses. Further items have been placed on loan to the

Library from performing organisations, music publishers, and by private indi viduals. The Library's collections have benefitted from the astute purchasing of a series of knowledgeable and dedicated specialist staff.

Printed Music: Holdings of Russian Editions and of Music

by Russian Composers

Successive Music Librarians at the British Library have taken the opportunity to purchase Russian editions of music where possible, usually through conti nental dealers. We have long known that we hold significant collections of Russian music but only with the conversion of our catalogues into machine readable form has it been possible to begin to quantify the extent of these col

lections, and only in preparation for this visit to Moscow has it actually been at

tempted. The principal source of the information I present is from our

Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1980 ... : this catalogue now forms the basis of CPM-Plus, a CD-ROM database, the second edition of which was published in 1997 and which includes data from our Current Music

Catalogue to 1996. Further details can now be found through Library's website

(www.bl.uk). CPM-Plus enables us to search the catalogues by place and coun

try of publication, as well as by publisher. I have identified about 3,500 cata

logue records for music published in Russia. The Library's policy of catalogu ing large series and collected editions on to one catalogue record means that our holdings of music published in Russia are in fact considerably in excess of that figure. Of the early publishers listed in D. W. Krummel's Guide for Dating Early Pubished Music2, the British Library's collection includes

11 Gerstenberg publications dating from between 1795 and 1800 8 Lissner items, the earliest published in 1796 32 Dalmas publications spanning 1805 to 1830 49 Paez publications dating from the foundation of the firm in 1810 to ap proximately 1840 34 Stellovsky publications from 1836-1884.

Overall I have traced 205 entries for music published in Russia before 1850, the

earliest of which dates from 1765.

Performance

But, of course, this is by no means the whole story. The purpose of printing music is, in the first instance, to facilitate performance, and there has been a

2. Donald William Krümmel, Guide for Dating Early Published Music : a manual of biblio

graphical practices, Hackensack, N.J.: J. Boonin, 1974.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

196 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 53/3

long and distinguished tradition of performances of music by Russian com

posers in the UK. Such performances have been made possible in part by the

availability of Russian imprints in the UK, but also by the publication of Russian music by British publishers. Many early performances of significant Russian

works were by the composers themselves. One large archive now in the British Library's ownership is that of the Royal Philharmonic Society. The

Philharmonic Society was founded in 1813 at a time when there was no per manent orchestral society performing orchestral and chamber music in

London accessible to the public—the Concerts of Ancient Music were a private and amateur concern and moreover they specifically excluded music written

after about 1750. Very soon after its foundation, the Philharmonic Society be

gan to assemble a library of scores and performance materials, and indeed in later years the Society was to lend items from its own collection to other

concert-giving organisations. The Society never owned its own premises, and

as its historical collections grew, so the storage of those collections presented an increasingly acute problem. In 1914, a collection of pre-eminent manuscript scores (including autograph scores of Haydn and Mendelssohn) were placed on loan in the British Museum Library while the remainder of the scores were housed at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1983, the remainder of the manu

scripts were transferred to what was by then the British Library. Today, that collection comprises manuscript music, printed music, and the Society's ex tensive archive of administrative papers and letters, all of which are available to scholars for study.

The Society's gave a number of early performances of Russian music. Many of these were the first performances in England, and a significant number were performed by their composers: Glazunov, Lyadov, Rachmaninov, Rubin

stein, and Tchaikovsky all performed in their own compositions. Tchaikovsky conducted the first performance in England of his Fourth Symphony at a Philharmonic Society concert in June 1893, just months before his death. The

following year his Sixth Symphony was so popular at its first performance on

Wednesday 28 February that it was 'repeated by special desire' at the Society's next concert a fortnight later. The society's archive contains the printed full score published the same year. Among the Society's correspondence files are letters from many composers and performers, including Mstislav Rostropo vich and Dmitri Shostakovich. One of the best-known British festivals is per haps the Henry Wood Promenade concerts, begun in 1895 in the Queen's Hall, London, with the Queen's Hall Orchestra under the baton of its newly appointed conductor, the then-26-year-old Henry Wood. Throughout his ca reer Wood's veneration of Russians and Russian music was evident (indeed in 1897 Wood had married Princess Olga Ouroussoff). In 1892 he gave the

English première of Tchaikovsky's Evgeny Onegin and in his golden jubilee concert in the Albert Hall in 1938 his great friend Rakhmaninov played his

popular Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. Late in his career, in 1942, Wood

gave the first British performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, "Leningrad". Much of Wood's archive of correspondence is now in the British

Library and contains numerous letters from composers and musicians includ

ing Shostakovich, Rakhmaninov, Sophie Satin, with officials at the Russian

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RUSSIAN MUSIC ARCHIVES IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY: AN OVERVIEW 197

Embassy, and with Soviet cultural institutions. And the archive also includes

photographs of a meeting held in Russia in honour of Wood in 1944. As well as

Henry Wood, the Library holds several archives of twentieth-century com

posers who were in sympathy with the Soviet Union, such as Bernard Stevens and Cornelius Cardew. The Communist composer Alan Bush corresponded extensively with Kabalevsky, as well as with other composers including Shostakovich and Khrennikov, and musicologists including Boris Kotliarov and Grigori Schneerson. The Library also holds the correspondence of the pi anist Susan Bradshaw, who had a long correspondence with Edison Denisov.

Music Manuscripts

Among the Library's music manuscript collections are a number of significant Russian compositions: we hold the autograph manuscript of six of the seven

pieces comprising Borodin's Petite Suite, written in 1885 and acquired by the

Library through a descendant of the work's dedicatee, Théodore Jadoul. Also in the same manuscript is a sketch for Borodin's Scherzo in A flat.

In 1950 the Library acquired Vaslav Nijinsky's choreographic score to

Debussy's Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune. The ballet was first produced at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 29 May 1912 and the score includes notes

relating to the scenery, accessories, costumes, action, and the dancers in the 1912 production. The choreographic notation was Nijinsky's invention. The

manuscript was presented by Mme Romola Nijinsky, widow of the dancer and dedicatee of the work.

In 1986, the British Library received perhaps its most important single gift since its establishment as a separate organisation: the collection of musical and

literary manuscripts of Stefan Zweig (1881-1942). Zweig was born in Vienna and between the wars was highly regarded as a writer. While still at school

Zweig had started to collect autographs, initially simply as a hobby. By the age of 16, he had formulated a policy of collecting manuscripts reflecting the cre ative process and over the next four decades he amassed a world-famous col lection of literary and musical autographs. For Zweig, the contemplation of an author's working methods was an aid to insight into his creative personality. Later in his life Zweig introduced a new principle: he now searched not only for the characteristic but also for works that stood among the highest achieve ments of their authors, or had in some way evoked a special response which

brought them lasting celebrity. As a result he sold or exchanged many items in

order to acquire others that came closer to his new ideal. His heirs continued

this after his death and further items were added to his collection. Of the 205

items now in the collection, Nos. 1-131, and No. 205 are music. Of these, four

are manuscripts of music by Russian composers: Musorgsky, Rubinstein, and

two by Stravinsky.

Musorgsky is represented by the song "Svetik Savishna", to words by Heine

in a translation by M. Mikhaylov. Another manuscript of the same work sur

vives in the St Petersburg Conservatory. Zweig acquired his own manuscript in 1929 from V. A. Heck in Vienna and it appears that the editor of the complete edition was not aware of the manuscript, which differs in some respects to the

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

198 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 53/3

St Petersburg manuscript. A third manuscript of the first song is apparently in the music archive of the State Publishing House in Moscow.

The autograph of Rubinstein's Serenade russe for piano has been annotated

by the engraver in preparation for the first Leipzig edition of the work pub lished in 1879.

Zweig apparently acquired his two Stravinsky manuscripts separately. The first is an album-leaf from the ballet L'Oiseau de feu, signed and dated 2 Decem ber 1910 by Stravinsky. The second manuscript is a notebook containing drafts and sketches for the ballet Pulcinella and compiled between September 1919 and April 1920. The work was first performed at the Théâtre national de

l'opéra, Paris, on 15 May 1920, choreographed by Massine and with décor by Pablo Picasso. Stravinsky was asked to provide the music for Pulcinella at a rel

atively late stage in the project and the speed with which he worked is evident from this sketchbook. It is thought that this manuscript is the one given by

Stravinsky to Picasso and that Zweig subsequently acquired it from Picasso. I have already mentioned the Royal Philharmonic Society collection, origi

nally loaned to us. Additionally, the Chester Music loan includes the autograph manuscript of Rakhmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3, numerous manuscripts by Stravinsky, including material for Les Noces. More recently, the autograph manuscript of Rakhmaninov's Second Symphony has also been placed on loan.

More recently, the Library has acquired two significant collections relating to the composer and pianist Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951). The first collection, acquired in 1989, is a small collection of letters and an article. The second col

lection, presented to the Library in 1997 came from a pupil of Medtner, Edna lies. Edna lies originally contacted the British Library regarding her collection in 1979, writing:

... I am known as the interpreter of the music of Medtner. I studied with him and

enjoyed the privilege of his friendship, and he himself regarded me as the authority

on his music.

I have an almost complete collection of his music; only a very few early works which

I could not obtain are missing. All these works are of course first editions and

Medtner found and corrected some misprints and also added further marks of ex

pression etc. in the light of the experience of performing them. He asked me to go

through his own copies of his entire works and copy all the alterations and additions he had made into my copies so that he could know that his authentic version of all his music would always be available to the world. He himself marked my copies of

several works I studied with him, and he also autographed several of them.

I also have the original manuscript of his Third Piano Concerto which he composed

in my home. His wife Anna Medtner inked over the first movement, but the second and third movements, by far the biggest part of the work, are in Medtner's own

handwriting just as he composed it. I also have the original manuscript of his Knight-Errant for two pianos part of which is also inked by Anna Medtner. I have

the original manuscript of a song which he wrote specially for me and autographed it with the statement that it was his 'first opus in ink'! Mrs Medtner copied every work he wrote page by page after he had composed it in pencil. I have several man

uscripts written by her, including the 'Round Dance' for two pianos which he auto

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RUSSIAN MUSIC ARCHIVES IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY: AN OVERVIEW 199

graphed and dedicated to me, and which incidentally we played together many times, as we did also his three Concertos ...

The collection includes all the items Mrs lies mentioned in her letter to

gether with letters from Medtner and his wife, concert programmes, bio

graphical information, etc. all of which will add greatly to the study of Medtner as composer and performer.

Scholarship

Regular performances of Russian music in the UK have evolved at the same time as scholarship and the availability of information in English about Russian

composers and their works. Chief among the scholars who have perhaps added most to our understanding of Russian musical culture are Dimitri

Calvocoressi, Gerald Abraham, and Rosa Newmarch. Calvocoressi himself was a collector of music and amongst his collection, presented to the Library by his niece, is the autograph manuscript of Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov's Tarantelle, Op. 25, for piano composed in St Petersburg in 1906 and dedicated to Calvocoressi; and a manuscript copy of Glazunov's Russkaya narodnaya pes nya. Also among the collections is a volume of letters and papers addressed to Patrick Piggott largely in connection with his research for his biography of Rakhmaninov.

Finally, I would like to mention a couple of notable printed items that the

Library has acquired in the last 20 years: these include an 1875 two-piano score of the Jurgensson edition of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 23, an notated by Eduard Dannreuther. Many of the annotations were adopted by the

composer in the second edition of 1879. We also hold a copy of the vocal score of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel, published by Gutheil in about 1927, the only score printed in the composer's lifetime. Finally, in 1985 we reported the ac

quisition of an apparently hitherto unrecorded edition of the Tsarist national

anthem, for solo voice and piano, published anonymously but signed by the

composer, Aleksei Fyodorovich L'vov. In 1993, the British Library was able to

acquire another version of the work, for chorus and piano, by the same pub lisher, but with the composer's signature apparently printed in lithographic fac simile. The solo version bears the plate number 6 whereas the more recently acquired one bears the plate number 2. The assumption is that the two were issued simultaneously in 1833. More remarkably, perhaps, the library also

posesses an autograph manuscript of the anthem, a copy made by the com

poser in 1858 for Stephen G Hatherly and presented by his widow to the

Library. While the British Library's holdings do not compare in significance with

comparison with holdings in institutions in France and the USA, both of which

benefitted from the activitiy of Russian émigrés, they nevertheless shed fasci

nating light on some aspects of Russian music history.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:52:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions