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New Research Guides Available Online!

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Sheet music cover for "The Broadway Glide" by Bert Grant and A. Seymour Brown in 1912. Cover art depicts a woman holding an open box from which a stream of small, dancing women are emerging.
Bert Grant, composer. A. Seymour Brown, lyricist. “That Broadway Glide.” 1912. Library of Congress Music Division.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Music Division’s specialists have been compiling and publishing online research guides to various subjects and composers represented in our music collections. We recently published three new guides worth highlighting: Musicals of Stage and Screen: A Research Guide; Johannes Brahms: A Guide to Primary and Secondary Resources at the Library of Congress; and Clara Schumann: A Guide to Resources.

Musicals of Stage and Screen: A Research Guide provides researchers with an overview of the Music Division’s musical theater collections. Whether you want to know how to search for published piano-vocal scores, understand the breadth of our special collections, find video webcasts of lectures and concerts, or discover related collections in other Library reading rooms, this guide orients you to the Library’s musical theater holdings as well as connects you with our digitized collections and catalogs for research.

Our next two research guides describe holdings for two 19th-century musical figures with special ties to one another. The Music Division holds one of the most significant collections in the world for composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), and the research guide Johannes Brahms: A Guide to Primary and Secondary Resources at the Library of Congress outlines those extraordinary holdings. Connect to digitized manuscripts, locate handwritten correspondence by Brahms, listen to online concerts and recordings, and learn about the 1983 International Brahms Conference hosted by the Music Division.

Clara Schumann: A Guide to Resources connects researchers with digitized holdings, cataloged materials, blog posts, and webcasts related to Clara Schumann (1819-1896). Schumann was one of the greatest piano virtuosi of the 19th century, as well as a composer who wrote a piano concerto, piano trio, Lieder, and more. She also wrote piano transcriptions and arrangements of chamber pieces and large-scale works, mostly by her husband, the composer Robert Schumann. After Robert died, Clara assumed full control of editing his collected works and curating his legacy. Johannes Brahms was deeply connected with the Schumann family, and provided emotional as well as financial support to Clara after Robert’s suicide attempt led him to an asylum. She and Brahms remained close friends and confidants until her death.

As of today, the Music Division has published 25 research guides highlighting topics from Jazz Research to Film Music, as well as composers ranging from big names like Beethoven and Stravinsky to lesser-known composers such as Eleanor Everest Freer and Gena Branscombe. Browse the Music Division’s research guides as well as a complete list of guides published by all divisions at the Library of Congress. And be sure to continue checking back, as we are always working on more guides and will publish them as we are able!

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