Rare Music

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 searching CATNYP under "autograph albums").

Some time ago, the Music Division received a donation of an autograph album.

Its pages reveal nearly as much about the owners as it does about those who made entries.

The album was first owned by Henrietta Schwill. Thanks to Ancestry.com (available within all branches of The New York Public Library as AncestryLibrary), we learn that Henreitta was born approximately 1870 to Albert and Carrie Schwill. Albert was head of a malt company in Chicago, IL that bore his name. With other relatives taking jobs within the company, this enabled his family to live quite comfortably.

The earliest entries in the book appear in the 1880s. Though Henrietta would have been just a teenager, she was within enough society circles to have contact with notable musicians of the day. Perhaps the most interesting of these early entries is that of Richard Strauss. Strauss in 1884 was just an emerging composer, and had not yet written any of the tone poems or operas for which he is best known.

Louis Arsene Delaunay (1826-1903) was a noted French actor. He signed Henrietta's album more than once, and sent her a few carte de visites. This page has the remains of a a flower, pasted in more than a century ago.

Here's a page signed with a musical incipit by the violini virtuoso and composer Pablo de Sarasate (composer of the well-known violin virtuoso piece Zigeunerweisen):

Another violinist brought about a major change in Henrietta's life. This was Carl Heinzen, who would marry Henrietta.

From this point, entries in the album are address to either Carl, or Henrietta or both of them. Through his connections, Carl was able to get quite a number of well-known musicians to sign.

I can't tell who's the acquaintance who wrote the following page, but he or she headed it with an excerpt from Paganini's virtuoso caprice for violin "La Campanella" and concluded it with an image of a dog, apparently named after the Belgian violin virtuoso Charles de Bériot.

One of the last entries in the album shows a new addition to the family: Carla, the Heinzens' daughter. This album leaf, addressed to Carla, is interesting because of the cartoons of the "three stars" (apparently of the Chicago Opera): Gustav Mahler, conductor Alfred Hertz, and baritone Otto Goritz. (I've not been able to identify the signee, Robert Blass.)

Carl seems to have given up music around 1912 and went to work in his father-in-law's factory, where he became a vice-president; he passed away in 1927. There is one letter from 1934, but otherwise the book appears to have fallen out of use by 1910, at a time when music was playing less of a role in the lives of the Heinzens.

The Carl and Henrietta Heinzen autograph album (call number JOB 07-16) provides a unique and personal view of the social activities of their owners from more than a century ago. One hundred years from now, will Facebook be able to do the same?

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 orchestral work, "Vita Brevis," apparently written to commemorates the composer's younger brother. The newspaper article which was affixed to the manuscript is from the Boston Globe.

Here in the Music Division of The New York Public Library I could locate only one score, his string quartet entitled "Some Shakespeare Fairy Characters," published in 1916.

Coincidentally, the only recording of music by Joseph Speaight that I could locate was of the second movement of this quartet. Entitled "The Lonely Shepherd," it was recorded ca. 1927-1929 by the Spencer Dyke String Quartet as a filler side to their recording of Dvorak's Quintet in A major, Op. 81, for the privately financed and short-lived National Gramophonic Society.

Let's hope that an enterprising company like Naxos will someday record a CD filled with the music of Joseph Speaight.

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 warm picture with "a friend" -- Licia Albanese, soprano of the Metropolitan Opera.

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(You may be thinking this is some kind of joke, but bear with me -- I do have a point to make below.)

The reviews were singular. Writing in the New York Herald-Tribune of November 27, 1953, Jay S. Harrison wrote:

"Oliver J. Dragon, a distinguished baritone member of the Kuklapolitan Players, gave a recital last night in Town Hall. It was his debut. It was also mine. Never before had the present writer reviewed a singing dragon, and, if the fates oblige, he never will again."

From the same date in the New York Times, chief music critic and author Harold C. Schonberg wrote:

"He is a rather remarkable performer. The way he moves around the stage you'd think he was made out of cloth, or something. He is completely uninhibited. He even departed from the printed list, choosing what suited his fancy. Very unorthodox, very.

It is difficult to appraise his voice, a cross between a whiskey baritone and a basso chevalier. Part of this difficulty stems from the program he selected. Was Bach present? No. Hugo Wolf? No. And how can one assess a singer's musicality without any excerpts from the "Quellennachweissamlungantiphonariumromanusbuchstaben?"

The Music Division has an extensive run of programs from Town Hall, where I was able to find one for November 26, 1953:

The note on page one of the program is particularly interesting:

"Since it is undetermined, at the time of this printing, whether or not Mr. Dragon is going to be in the proper artistic frame of mind to cope with the program as listed, his managers have persuaded him to render his selections in any order he pleases. Consequently, we have numbered each individual song and Mr. Dragon will announce from the stage, by number, the actual order of appearance. Intermission will, in a like manner, be determined by the artist."

Page four of the program offers a unique view of the range of compositions, including composers such as the French Dragoneau through the Italian Dragoni to the "native songs" of Chicago:

A look through the finding aid of the Town Hall Archives (held in the Music Division, call number: JPB 88-26) did not reveal any documentation of this special recital.

So you may be wondering why highlight a children's tv character from the 1950s in a blog devoted to rarities from the Music Division?

Out of necessity (for example, whether by limitations of space, or preservation) most libraries need to make a distinction between materials that can and should be acquired, and those which should not be. For many years, the Music Division has been known for its excellent collections of classical music, but less so in the popular or non-classical areas. Observing current interests and trends in research, it's obvious that we should try to avoid such distinctions, and leave it to our patrons to make that determination for themselves. The value that accrues to objects and information is based on how it is used by the public and the meaning and significance they attach to it.

This recital of a then-leading television program character is certainly humorous, but it can also be seen as a gentle parody of other recitalists who eschew a strict program in favor of a selection and order that is determined on the spot. (Is that not suggestive of later trends in contemporary music, where the unplanned nature of a recital was akin to the creation of music? Think of John Cage.) From the point of view of Town Hall, it shows the democratizing influence of their management (which still continues a tradition of diverse programming).

Much can be learned from an examination of flyers and ephemera. And it's a pleasing thing when the materials are so entertaining.

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 instrumentation. Surprise! The stage band was written on just two staves--like a piano score. No instruments were indicated at all. I looked at the back of the volume to see if it was included as a supplement. Not finding anything there, I went to the front matter.

I found editor Fabrizio Della Seta's explanation in the introduction, where he states: "Following the practice of his time, Verdi wrote a guida banda (a short score on two staves), leaving its realization to the leader of the banda in theaters staging the work. This instrumentation could vary from theater to theater." Additional reading explained that the editorial practice of the Works of Giuseppe Verdi edition is to transmit what came from Verdi's hand. Other hands, while possibly significant to performance practice, were not incorporated into the edition.

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 Biblioteca del Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milan. The editors of the Works of Gioachino Rossini edition describe our copy as being a copy of the earlier manuscript. In fact, the two manuscripts are “linked” in that markings in the Milan manuscript correspond to page turns in our manuscript.
Our manuscript probably stems from the latter half of the 19th century (based on the highly acidic paper on which it is written). The property stamp of Sam Franko (of the family that began the Goldman Band, still active today in New York City) indicates that it was probably picked up by him on one of his sojourns in Europe. As stated in the critical notes, he never appears to have played it for his concerts, and donated the manuscript to The New York Public Library’s Music Division in 1919, where it was first cataloged the following year.

Even in my brief time as curator, quite a number of people have expressed interest in this work. So the Works of Gioachino Rossini edition have satisfied a great need by publishing it in an excellent new edition.

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 memorabilia” or “black collectibles.” Recent articles have noted how the market for these items have increased, while having the ironic (and uncomfortable) result of perpetuating negative and stereotype imagery. (See this article on the website of the Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Some of you might have seen Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled (see also the Wikipedia entry) which also comments on popular and stereotype images of African-Americans in popular culture.)

But this song is different. Here are the lyrics (punctuation and capitalization as in the original):
The Winds roar’d
and the Rains fell!
the poor white Man
faint and weary came
and sat under our Tree.
He has no Mother
to bring him Milk
no Wife to grind him Corn
Let us pity the white Man
no Mother has he!

What’s going on here? It appears that the African is pitying the white man. Are the lyrics of the song to be taken literally?

Let’s take a look at the composer of this unusual song. Though born in France, François-Hippolyte Barthélemon (1741-1808) spent most of his life in England, where he began his composing career writing songs and music for plays. He gave up writing for the theater due to too many political intrigues, but continued writing songs and instrumental music. In addition to composing, he excelled on the violin and wrote at least two treatises on thorough bass realization.

In 1766 he married Mary (also known as Polly) Young, great-granddaughter of Anthony Young (who was at a time credited as composer of “God Save the King”) whose descendents included a number of musicians. Mary was also the niece (through marriage) of noted composer Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778). Arne and his wife became very close to the Barthélemons, and after the death of Thomas, his widow Cecilia lived the remainder of her life with the Barthélemons. Another well-known acquaintance was Joseph Haydn. While was visiting London in the 1791-92 season (at the invitation of Salomon), Haydn spent much time with the Barthélemons and often stayed at their retreat in Vauxhall.

Barthélemon’s wife died on September 20, 1799. According to his daughter Cecilia Maria Barthélemon Hanslowe (whose brief biography of her father appears in the posthumous publication of his score to Jefté in Masfa), her father became increasingly religious in his later years, took an active interest discussing spirituality and morality. He made the acquaintance of many in the Anglican religious community. (I’ve not been able to find much information about the dedicatee of the song, Madame Villars de Malortie, although that could be revealing.)

In setting up a chapel, Barthélemon called upon the services of his friend, the Rt. Rev. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London. Porteus was a leading voice of abolitionism in England. He was instrumental in getting the British Parliament to pass the Slave Trade Act of 1807, repealing the sale of slaves in England — an early step in eradicating slavery. (Last year saw acknowledgments of the 200th anniversary of this law.) It is conceivable that Barthélemon wrote this song to support the Bishop’s efforts in sensitizing people to the plight of Africans being taken as slaves. The composer has chosen to depict the African as pitying the white man so as to gently shame white people into recognizing the inhumanity they are commiting by maintaining the slave trade.

Though François-Hippolyte Barthelemon died July 20, 1808, perhaps the value of this song is not so much its musical content, but rather as one of the cultural artifacts that are tied to social and political acts of their time.

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 images illustrating a variety of piano designs mentioned in the text. These images are a combination of drawings and lithographs - the latter apparently culled from 19th century journals or advertisements. It’s possible that Van Noorden kept these illustrations over the years as a curiosity.

Although I’ve known about this book for decades, only recently did I confirm that it’s a typescript for a published article with the same title that appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine (January 1905, p. 334-39). Happily, Google Books has it available in digitized form. A comparison of text between typescript and magazine shows only minor changes.

But this comparison shows that nearly half the illustrations were eliminated from the article. (Two of the illustrations in the article–the piano against the wall, and the piano combined with dresser–appear to have been excised from the book before NYPL acquired the typescript.) In addition, the published magazine (and its digitized form) is small, resulting a loss of detail.
In one case, the published article refers to two illustrations: “Mr. Hallett’s 1857 grand piano with a circular sounding board, over which radiate two, three or four sets of strings, so that the instrument might have two or more keyboards available for quartettes, etc. The illustration shows only two keyboards.” The single illustration in the published article shows an upright piano (complete with candle holders). The illustration that begins this blog entry was also intended to show Mr. Hallett’s invention. To my eyes, it suggests a conjoined twin.

The article has a somewhat primitive drawing of a woman in profile playing a “piano with perpendicular keyboard.” That was supposed to be the first of two illustrations; finally, here is the other:

Near the beginning of the article, Van Noorden speak of inventors’ “flights of fancy” in attempts to innovate and elaborate the design and construction of pianos, often combining it with other instruments and mediums. Here is John Day’s 1816 instrument with glass bells (although they look like glass rods to me):

Mr. Netwon’s piano of 1860 uses metal gongs instead of strings:

Though we may often think of typescripts as being little more than a draft for a published work, it often pays to examine them thoroughly. In the case of this article, examination reveals a gem of unusual illustrations that would be difficult to find elsewhere.

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 sometime between July and September 1866 in Mile End Old Town in London, Great Britain. According to the account in Curiosities of the American Stage by Laurence Hutton (published in 1890, which can be read or downloaded from Google books), he first learned violin by ear, since his father was an orchestral violin player. Only near the end of his very brief life did he start learning to read music, feeding his appetite to know more.

He must have possessed unusual talent because he was performing in the 1872 edition of The Black Crook at Niblo’s Garden in New York City (according to the Internet Broadway Database, this edition ran from December 18, 1871 through February 24, 1872). He was five years old! (The Black Crook is considered the first American musical; the site of Niblo’s Garden–once of the center of entertainment in the 19th century–is located near the Spring Street stop in Manhattan on the 6 train.) At some point during the entertainment, he would get on the podium and lead the orchestra in a number.

By 1874, his father had brought him to Boston, where he was appearing at the Boston Theatre in a show called The Naiad Queen. As recounted in the Boston Globe of January 12, 1874:

It was only as he came off the stage at the matinée performance that Mr. Shewell, the manager, noticed a look of fatigue and an air of languor in the lad, and, laying his hand kindly on the little fellow’s shoulder, asked him, “What ’s the matter, Jimmy? Aren’t you feeling well?” The lad cheerfully replied, but the manager seeing that he was evidently not well, advised him not to come to the theatre in the evening, and coutined his father against bringing him. Accordingly, Jimmy remained at his lodgings with his father in the evening, though professing his ability and desire to go to the theatre as usual, and saying that nothing ailed him. Father and son retired early, the lad seeming bright and complaining of no ill feeling. Sometime after, the father was awakened by hearing the lad’s voice, and distinguished, after waking the words: “Merciful God, make room for a little fellow!” or something similar. He supposed the boy was talking in his sleep, and spoke to him with the intention of rousing him, but received no answer. He became somewhat alarmed and endeavored to wake the child, when he discovered to his grief and horror, that his son was dead. His young life had gone out with that touching aspiration. Coroner Foye was called, but deemed an inquest unnecessary, the cause of death being, manifestly, heart disease.

The Globe article speaks glowingly of his abilities:

The lad was a bright and handsome child, a marvel of musical precocity, and a perfect enthusiast in the profession for which he seemed designed by nature…Not only did he play violin solos with a degree of precision and technical skill marvellous [sic] in one so young, but he proved that his musical powers were not limited to execution by the grace and accuracy with which he was able to conduct the orchestra through an intricate overture. He was passionately fond of music, and it was his life and constant thought.

The mislabeled clipping file had a lovely lithograph which I moved to our Iconography file, where it is one of two relatively larged sized images of James G. Speaight. An unidentified article in our clipping file (this one filed under “Speaight, James G.”) provided a brief description of Speaight’s funeral, which was well attended, in particular by members of the theater troup with which he appeared. Though a British citizen, he was buried in Boston Commons, in the tomb of Mrs. George H. Cutter.

It’s sad to think the story ends there. Perhaps the family was able to move on. Further investigation shows that a Speaight family continued living in Mile End Old Town, where several children were born: Sarah Ann Speaight, July-Sept. 1876, Amelia Susannah Speaight in Jan-Mar 1878, and Sydney James Speaight in July-September 1892.

The social issues concerning young performers were also on peoples’ mind. Novelist and poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote a short story, The Young Violinist, in which Speaight’s demise figures as part of the story, intended to arouse awareness of child exploitation. This theme is echoed in the obituary/editorial authored by John S. Dwight and appearing in his Dwight’s Journal of Music (Jan. 24, 1874, p. 165). Without recordings, printed music, or even music criticism, it’s almost impossible to know how Young Americus played. Yet, with newspapers notices combined with these fine images, it’s possible to imagine the affect this young talent had on the people who heard him, and the great loss felt upon his death.

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 hand-colored copy of Musurgia Universalis, and they’ve provided a nice but brief description on their website. Although slightly tangential to his subject, Edward E. Lowinsky provided a more thorough discussion of this page in his article “Ockeghem’s Canon for Thirty-six Voices: An Essay in Musical Iconography” (in Essays in musicology : in honor of Dragan Plamenac on his 70th birthday, edited by Gustave Reese and Robert J. Snow, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, c1969 - ISBN 0822910985, 155-80), of which the following is taken.

There’s an enormous amount of imagery here–a Renaissance-influenced combination of religious and mythological symbols. Its energy reminds me of a sanitized version of some of Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. At the foreground left, Pythagoras leans on an explanation of his theorem as well as Zarlino’s senario, while the lady holding the cornet on the right side is Music. Both figures have musical instruments at their feet (ancient and modern), while the men inside the opening in the center represent the earthly “musical instrumentalis” and are working on new musical creations. Above them in the distance of the beach are nine satyrs and eight sea-gods. Slightly off to the right, a shepherd speaks to a cliffside with a quote from Virgil “Pascite ut ante Boves” (”graze, cattle, as before…”) which, by means of a dotted line, bounces back as an echo “…oves” - no doubt signifying Kircher’s extensive interest in acoustics. Further to the right of that cliff, a long stone staircase leads to a landing on which is perched Pegasus, ready to take flight in service to the muses.
The central sphere contains signs of the zodiac and, in addition to the author, title and publication information, is emblazoned with a quote from Job “Quis concentum coeli dormire faciet?” (i.e. “Who shall still the harmony of the spheres?”), while Apollo sits on top carrying a kithara in his right hand and panpies in his left.

Like rush hour on a New York City subway, it’s a very amusing and hyperactive artwork. But what interests me most is the musical quotation on this frontispiece. It’s a 36-part canon by Romano Micheli (the Latin indicates that the solution to the canon can be found on page 587). The 36 parts are broken down into 4 groups of 9 voices (i.e. 3 x 3), an hommage to the significance of the three-fold divinity, as well as to the nine muses. More significantly, this canon pays hommage to a famous “lost” work, a 36-voice canon by a master of mensuration, Johannes (or Jean) Ockeghem. Though Lowinsky was convinced he had uncovered the piece (Deo gratia), most scholars agree that the work is lost, and some acknowledge that there is little evidence proving that Ockeghem ever composed such a work.
Nevertheless, when seen in context of the entire book, Kircher’s Musurgia Universalis stands as a historical testament, an exhaustive and fascinating effort by one of the last polymaths to encompass the universe of musical knowledge.

The Music Division holds two copies of Musurgia Universalis (call numbers Drexel 2670-2672), both part of the Drexel Collection (a founding collection of The New York Public Library), while a third copy is held by the Rare Books Division.