Georg Solti, annotated score for Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique
Symphonies Romanticism Instrumental music Conductors Music notation Interpretation and style Living document
This annotated copy of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique was owned by Sir Georg Solti, and chronicles 19 groups of performances dating from 1959-1992. Shown here are the inside cover of the score, listing the dates and orchestra for each of the 19 performance sets, including tours and recordings; the closing page of the third movement, "In the country" (see YouTube video); and the opening of the fourth movement, "March to the scaffold." Geolocation: Chicago's Symphony Center, the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Solti was the orchestra's Music Director from 1969-1991, and used this score for five different sets of performances with them.
Hector Berlioz. Symphonie fantastique: op. 14 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, c1900). Sir Georg Solti Archive. Merritt Room Mus 628.3.64 Solti
Composed in 1830; published in 1900; used in performances from 1959-1992; acquired in 2011
Music, First and Last: Scores from the Sir Georg Solti Archive (Music Library Digital Exhibition)
"Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, H 48 - 3. Scène aux champs (Adagio)," recorded by Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1972 (YouTube)
Lou Harrison, Gending Alexander
American composer Lou Harrison's Gending Alexander, a work for Javanese gamelan ensemble, was first performed April 22-24, 1981 at the University of Delaware. Below is the score for the piece, written in kepathian notion - though traditionally, gamelan compositions are passed down orally. Geolocation: The Indonesian island of Java, the gamelan tradition of which greatly inspired Harrison and his work (as did the related tradition of the nearby island of Bali).
Lou Harrison. Gending Alexander = Pel.. Barang. Music manuscripts, sketches, poetry, and drawings, 1945-1991. Ms. Coll. 132.
"Gending Alexander," performed by Gamelan Si Betty on a 1992 recording (YouTube)
Lili Boulanger, Cortège, arranged by Nadia Boulanger
This manuscript of Lili Boulanger's 1914 violin-piano duet Cortège is an arrangement by her sister Nadia for solo violin and chamber orchestra. The full score is in Nadia’s hand; the parts are partly autograph, and partly in a copyist’s hand. While there is no solo violin part, markings in the score indicate it may have been used by the soloist. Geolocation: The Boulangers' family home in Paris, where Nadia lived her whole life.
Lili Boulanger. Cortège​​. Arranged by Nadia Boulanger. (19--). Merritt Room Mus 631.856.200
Cortège composed in 1914; toured in different arrangement by U.S. by Nadia Boulanger in 1925; acquired in 2014
"Yolanda Bruno (Violin) and Isabelle David (Piano) - Lili Boulanger: Cortège," the violin-piano version of the piece (YouTube)
Harvard Music Library collections related to Nadia Boulanger: scores by Boulanger's students; various American music scores collected by Boulanger; and Boulanger's letters to the Chanler and Pickman families
A 1962 profile on Nadia Boulanger in the Harvard Crimson
Autograph full score (plus individual instruments' parts partly in autograph, partly in a copyist's hand)
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Six Easy Keyboard Sonatas (Wq. 53)
Sonatas Keyboard music Classical era Amateur pieces
This collection of six “easy” pieces, composed between 1762 and 1766, was the last of C.P.E. Bach’s seven Berlin sonata collections, and one of several he assembled to appeal to the amateur musical market. The first Breitkopf publication dedicated solely to Bach’s work, the set was published simultaneously in treble- and soprano-clef editions. Pictured here, from the latter edition, is the third movement (Presto) of the sixth and final sonata, in F major. Peruse the full set of the six sonatas here. Geolocation: The Berliner Schloss in Berlin, where Bach worked at the court of Frederick of Great as member of the royal orchestra.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Sechs leichte Clavier Sonaten von Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, 1st ed. (Leipzig: Bey Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf und Sohn., 1766). Merritt Room Mus 627.2.426.6
Bey Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf und Sohn (Leipzig, Germany)
"Keyboard Sonata in F Major, Wq. 53/6, H. 183: III. Presto," performed on clavichord by Miklós Spányi (YouTube)
"C.P.E. Bach at 300" (2014 Houghton Library and Music Library Exhibition)