One year ago, I published a blog post declaring my excitement about a one-year countdown to Clara Schumann’s 200th birthday and highlighted Schumann’s manuscript cadenzas from the Library’s Whittall Foundation Collection, material that is digitized and available online. Now, finally, Clara’s big day has arrived! 200 years ago, in Leipzig, Germany, Marianne Tromlitz gave birth …
Any other Clara Schumann fanatics out there? I’ve been a personal devotee of Clara the composer ever since I first listened in college to Barbara Bonney and Vladimir Ashkenazy’s recording, Robert & Clara Schumann Lieder. I was a Music major and voice student exploring new repertoire for upcoming recitals; while I already loved Robert Schumann’s …
It’s Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air! As this blog has revealed to us over the last 14 months, the Music Division holds a plethora of materials in its collections including manuscript scores, correspondence, business papers, iconography, and yes – even love letters. There’s not a romance in the history of classical composers …
The Jerome Kern Collection features correspondence, including love letters from Jerome Kern to his wife Eva Leale and a letter to her father requesting his blessing to propose.
American composer, teacher, publisher, and piano manufacturer William Batchelder Bradbury kept an album of musical autographs with signatures from Louis and Marianne Spohr, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Joseph Joachim, Robert and Clara Schumann, Ignaz Moscheles, and more. Learn more about the autographs and view the digitized album on the Library of Congress website.
The Music Division is home to some magnificent Mozart manuscripts, from his Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, to a handwritten letter from 14 year-old Wolfgang to his sister Nannerl, to his revered Gran Partita. In addition to these (fully digitized!) Mozart manuscripts, our collections also feature reflections and commentary on the …
