Posts by Bob Kosovsky

What better way to celebrate Beethoven’s birthday than with a unique portrait of Beethoven.  The impressive oil-painting above usually hangs in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on the 3rd floor in the Research Division.  (Due to recent reconfiguration of public space, the painting is temporarily taking a rest from public view.)  It measures 57 x 46 inches and has an impressive provenance.  You can see some of its former owners by looking at the catalog record for the painting.

The December 10, 2010 performance of the Metropolitan Opera’s production (which opens tonight) of Giacomo Puccini’s La fanciulla del West will mark the 100th anniversary of the opera, which had its premiere at the Met on the same date in 1910 featuring a stellar cast of Emmy Destinn, Enrico Caruso, and Pasquale Amato with Arturo Toscanini conducting.

Friday November 12, 2010 was a special day for users of Twitter and users of archives.  The day was designated as “Follow An Archive Day” or, to use the Twitter hashtag, #followanarchiveday

It’s been a while since my last post, but the genesis of this post began with July 4th, 2010.  I was thinking:  What better way to observe the anniversary of the United States of America than with the national anthem. (The image above ‑ seen through mylar protection ‑ is of the first edition of the Star-Spangled Banner owned by the Music Division – one of only nine surviving copies.)

(If you think this blog entry is about the 1922 film Orphans of the Storm by D. W. Griffith, you're not entirely wrong; wait until the end.)

With digitization of books being a hot topic, some of you may have heard of the term "orphan works." In brief, an orphan work is a work where the copyright holder cannot be found. For musical works, many assume that "the copyright holder" is simply the composer, but this is not always true. The copyright holder can be the composer's descendents, relatives, lawyers, or anyone that the creator designates as a legal successor after the creator's death. (When the musical work has been composed "for hire" then the copyright holder 

Beverly Sills musical scores have arrived at Lincoln Center in a venue in which she never sang: The Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. We take pride in announcing that we received the collection of her scores from her estate auction at Doyle's New York on October 7, 2009. (We also obtained two costume designs by Thierry Bosquet, a frequent designer for the New York City Opera, which I'll discuss in another post.)

I've been on the planning committee for this year's student reception at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It's a great opportunity to meet students who will be exploring the use of the library. Students get to meet each other from diverse schools who would not ordinarily encounter one another.

This year has seen many concerts marking the bicentennial of composer Joseph Haydn's death on May 31, 1809. As part of these events, the publisher, G. Henle Verlag of Munich has issued a facsimile of one of the Music Division's prized manuscripts, Haydn's Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6. Composed in 1793, this work contains (in the words of noted musicologist James Webster): "arguably Haydn’s most original and concentrated double-variation movement, with a coda (added in revision) of Beethovenian power."

Sometimes you can find unusual items in unusual places. Alexander Waugh's new book "The House of Wittgenstein" brings the Wittgenstein family and their legacy to the forefront of attention. Apart from this publication, scholars can now investigate a little-known source in the Music Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

A few years ago we received a gift of the working and personal papers of the eminent music theorist and professor, Felix Salzer. Salzer (1904-1986) was a student of the noted music theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935). The papers (call number JPB 07-1) contain not only Salzer's numerous analyses and writings, but also some of 

On Facebook, the popular social networking website, people can view each other's friends and social connections as well as their activities, such what movies one has seen and what music one has heard. One can scribble messages to each other, send virtual flowers and gifts, and generally interact with a wide variety of people, some of whom you may not even know very well. What did people do before Facebook? They had an equivalent: autograph albums. Although not as technologically complex as today's web applications, autograph albums can offer an intimate glimpse into a person's life. The New York Public Library has many autograph albums that originally belonged to individuals (try 

Many warm greetings and thanks to Sebastian Pryke who, in a reponse to one of my previous posts, revealed himself to be the great-great grandnephew of child prodigy James G. Speaight. Sebastian and his brother Jonathan Pryke are apparently the great-great grandsons of James's brother Joseph Speaight (1868-1947) who was a British pianist, composer, and taught at Trinity College. According to Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians (7th edition), Joseph composed three symphonies, a piano concerto, and other works such as songs.

The British Library catalog lists quite a number of songs and small works by Joseph Speaight. Sebastian mentioned Joseph's unpublished 

If serendipity is a useful thing when browsing through the holdings of The New York Public Library, it's all the more true for The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, whose extensive collection contain an enormous amount of ephemera (most of which does not appear in the catalog). Some years ago, in going through some of our extensive program files, a coworker found an intriguing flyer for the Town Hall (and possibly New York City) recital debut of Oliver J. Dragon, baritone.  

The soloist was none other than Ollie, from the famed 1950s television show Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. The rear of the flyer offers many informative comments, and a 

A recent reference question asked what is the instrumentation of the stage band in act 1 of Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata. In case you've forgotten, the opera opens at the house of Violetta, who's giving a party to celebrate her recovery from illness. After Violetta and Alfredo sing the duet "Libiamo ne' lieti calici," the stage band (banda) begins to play, at which point the party guests exit to the next room to dance, leaving Violetta and Alfredo alone in order to fall in love. It seemed like a simple question. I pulled the authoritative Works of Giuseppe Verdi edition and found the spot to examine the 

It’s always exciting to see citations to the holdings of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in newly published books and articles. But it’s even more exciting when a newly-published score is based on one of our manuscripts.

The latest volume of the new Works of Gioachino Rossini edition (entitled “Chamber Music Without Piano”) contains several works, among them the Serenata. Composed in 1823 “for his friend Vincenzo Bianchi” (and first published in 1828) there are only two manuscript sources for this work, neither in the hand of the composer. The earlier (and primary source) is located in the 

One day when a former Chief of the Music Division (now enjoying retirement) was browsing through an auction catalog, she came across a listing for a piece of early 19th century sheet music. Entitled “The African’s Pity on the White Man” and published in England, the item was being sold in excess of $1,000 (this was in the early 1990s). A quick hunt in one of our under-processed collections revealed that we owned a copy of this sheet music. We had it quickly cataloged for our Special Collections, where it now can be found with the call number: Music-Res. (Sheet) 93-3.

Why the high price? No doubt the dealer was aware of the market for “black 

One of the more amusing books in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is a volume bluntly titled Freak Pianos (call number: Mus. Res. *MKDCC). Its author is C. Van Noorden, about whom I could find little, other than he or she flourished in England as a music and dance critic in the early decades of the 20th century.

Articles by this person appearing in the Dancing Times can be found in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, and it is probable that the author is related to a few other Van Noordens who were active as musicians at the turn of the 20th century in England. Freak Pianos consists of a brief text, followed by 18 leaves containing 20 

A colleague was looking at the Music Division’s vast clipping file, and pulled out a folder with a strange name: “Americus, Young.” The picture inside, of a highly decorated young boy and published in 1874, made it clear that “Young Americus” was just a nickname - but what was his real name?

A little bit of research in Google revealed the answer: he was James G. Speaight, child prodigy on the violin, who is probably known most for his sudden death. Thanks to the England & Wales FreeBMD Birth Index database (available on Ancestry.com, marketed to libraries as AncestryLibrary), we discovered that, in spite of his nickname, he was born 

Welcome to the blog of the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It’s my intention for this blog to serve as a way to make the Music Division (and The Library in general) a more accessible and welcoming place by featuring some of the treasures and unusual items we have. I encourage feedback and dialogue on any of the topics I present. So what better to open a blog that with the frontispiece from a famous book: Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia Universalis, published in Rome (by Corbelletti) in 1650.

The Special Collections Department of Glasgow University Library possesses a unique