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)
"Niurba ohuokaia," recorded by Eduard Alekseyev
Dance music Folk music Ethnomusicology Ritual Sakha/Yakutia
This recording of songs from the Yakut round dance was made by ethnomusicologist Eduard Alekseyev in the village of Maar in the Niurba district on June 23, 1977, during a celebration commemorating the 10th anniversary of Markhinskiy sovkhoz (collective). Geolocation: The Niurba district of Yakutia.
“Niurba ohuokhaia” The Eduard Alekseyev Fieldwork Collection of the Musical Culture of Yakutia,​ 1969-2009. AWM RL 16267
"Tree of Life: Cosmography and Environment in Yakutian Epic" (2019 Music Library Exhibition)
Alekseyev's Website
Jeanne Beauvais, annotated score for Vernon Martin's Ladies' Voices
Musical theatre/opera Interpretation and style Off-Broadway
This copy of Vernon Martin's nine-minute Ladies’ Voices contains veteran Broadway and classical singer Jeanne Beauvais’ performance markings from the show's 1963 New York premiere by the After Dinner Opera Company. Geolocation: The site of the Pocket Theatre in New York, an Off-Broadway house where the After Dinner Opera Company performed.
Vernon Martin. Ladies’ voices: a chamber opera. Text by Gertrude Stein. Dyeline vocal score (1955). Jeanne Beauvais Scores, correspondence and other materials, 1927-1988. Ms. Coll. 127, Box 1, Folder 23
New York premiere in 1963; composed 1955; acquired in 2007
"The Woman Who Saved Carnegie Hall - Jeanne Beauvais," excerpts from a c. 1980s Beauvais recital filmed by downtown New York videographer Nelson Sullivan (YouTube)
Guido Adler, annotated copy of Alexander Wheelock Thayer's Chronological Catalog of the Works of Ludwig von Beethoven
Musicology Thematic catalogs Music libraries
Jewish scholar, writer, critic, pedagogue, and editor Guido Adler’s library was a working collection: like this interleaved copy of Thayer’s Beethoven thematic catalog, many of the books and offprints are heavily annotated and corrected, and illustrate Adler’s place at the heart of the new discipline of historical musicology. This particular image shows Adler's annotation of themes from Beethoven's 23 Songs of Various Nationalities, including his re-transcription of the three Russian tunes. Geolocation: Adler's residence in Vienna.
Alexander Wheelock Thayer. Chronologisches Verzeichniss der Werke Ludwig van Beethoven’s (Berlin: Ferdinand Schneider, Matthäi Kirchstrasse 24, 1865). Guido Adler Collection Merritt Room ML134.B4 T4 1865
Thayer's book published in 1865; Adler's death in 1941; acquired in 2015
Guido Adler's Library (2017 Music Library Exhibition)
"Beethoven: 23 Songs of Various Nationalities, WoO 158a - 13. Vo lesocke komarockov mnogo urodilos',"performed by soprano Janice Watson (YouTube)
Boston punk/rock cassette tapes, recorded by Arthur Freedman
In the late 1970s, Arthur Freedman (b. 1957) began to record in the clubs of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. The resulting collection comprises over 720 hours of local rock and punk music performances, some with accompanying material such as set lists, tickets, and technical or performance notes, and many otherwise unrecorded. Shown here are cassettes from four of the gigs he attended: Influential post-punk band Mission of Burma, recorded July 25, 1982 at The Paradise (C 37523, with backstage pass) New wave band The Young Snakes, featuring Aimee Mann, recorded April 11, 1981 with Art Yard at The Underground (C 37409) and June 8, 1981 with Someone & the Somebodies at Spit Rumble Semi (C 37407, with set list) All-women punk group Lizzie Borden & the Axes, recorded September 6, 1985 at Jumpin’ Jack Flash (C 37357) Geolocation: Jumpin' Jack Flash, a club at which Freedman recorded in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston.
Arthur Freedman Collection
A digitized live recording from the Freedman collection (a 1981 set at The Paradise by punk/new wave group People in Stores)
"Young Snakes (Aimee Mann) Me & the Girls - 1981 Demo," including footage of Boston punk scene memorabilia (YouTube)
Fred Ho, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors
Jazz Operas Leftist politics Revolution Surrealism Feminism Intersectionality
Chinese-American composer, baritone saxophonist, activist, and Marxist Fred Ho's avant-garde jazz opera Warrior Sisters (1998), written with librettist Ann Greene, imagines a time-and-space bending rescue mission by three feminist revolutionaries—Fa Mu Lan, Nana Yaa Asantewa, and Sieh King King—who arrive in the 1970s to rescue the jailed Black Liberation Army leader Assata Shakur. Shown here is an excerpt from "Black Revolutionary Love," from Act 2, Scene 2 (a duet between Shakur and fellow BLA member Sundiata Acoli), accompanied by a publicity photograph taken by Rainer Fehringer. Geolocation: Ho's longtime apartment in Brooklyn, New York.
Fred Ho. Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors. Fred Ho manuscript scores, performance programs, and other material: 1991-2011. Ms. Coll. 142
"Excerpts from Fred Ho, 'Warrior Sisters' at The Kitchen, 2000" (Vimeo)
More materials related to the Kitchen's 2000 performance of Warrior Sisters
"Act II, Scene 2: Black Revolutionary Love is Forever," from the 1999 recording of Warrior Sisters (YouTube)
M. le comte de la Cépède, La poétique de la musique
Aesthetics and emotional expression Poetry Opera Women's education
La poétique de la musique, a 700-plus page treatise on aesthetics by French naturalist and amateur composer Bernard Germain de la Cépède, was first published in 1785. This abridged edition was published in 1787 in the Bibliotheque Universelle des Dames, a subscription series intended to provide well-to-do women with a general education appropriate to their gender and role in society; la Cépède’s treatise is the only work on the arts in the 156-volume set. Geolocation: The publishing house in Paris where the abridged version of La poétique de la musique was produced.
la Cépède, Bernard Germain de, 1756-1825
M. le comte de la Cépède (Bernard Germain Etienne de La Ville sur Illon). La poétique de la musique (A Paris: Rue Hôtel Serpente, 1787). Merritt Room ML3845.L3 1787
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)
Duke Ellington, arrangement of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's "Stormy Weather"
Jazz Big band music Musical revues Arranging
This score for "Stormy Weather," in Ellington’s hand, notates the saxophone section accompaniment to the soloists' melody line. This arrangement, one of at least half a dozen he would devise over three decades, appears in his first recording of the song in 1933. Geolocation: The Cotton Club in Harlem, where Ellington and Ethel Waters made "Stormy Weather" the main attraction of the 22nd Cotton Club Parade revue.
Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. “Stormy Weather.” Holograph of Duke Ellington arrangement. Merritt Room Mus 662.524.41
Written (and first recorded by Ellington) in 1933; acquired in 2008
"1933 HITS ARCHIVE: Stormy Weather - Duke Ellington (instrumental)" (YouTube)
The Duke Ellington Recording Collection at Harvard, which contains three different entries of "Stormy Weather" recordings