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 …
Learn about the Library's holdings related to German composer and pianist Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Senior Music Reference Specialist Dr. Paul Allen Sommerfeld shares highlights from a newly published research guide on Schumann at the Library of Congress.
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 …
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 following post was written in collaboration with Senior Music Specialist Susan Clermont. The label “rock star” tends to conjure images of modern-day bands like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Go-Gos, Queen, or Led Zeppelin. But if we venture further back into the 19th century, virtuoso performing artists like pianist Franz Liszt, bassist Domenico …
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.
Concerts from the Library of Congress returns for a 95th season, packed with an impressive and richly diverse roster of more than 95 free events, including concerts, lectures, films, panels, conversations with artists and more. 2019-20 is a year of visionary legacies. In February we begin an adventurous and in-depth Beethoven at 250 festival that …