The following post is adapted from an article by Kevin Lavine, Senior Music Specialist and Reference Librarian. The complete article, part of the web presentation Felix Mendelssohn at the Library of Congress, can be read here. Drawn together by their shared love of music and exceptional talents, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) and his older sister Fanny […]
Baseball season is just around the corner; Johann Sebastian Bach (not to be confused with Canadian heavy-metal singer Sebastian Bach) has just celebrated a birthday; what better time than now to revisit From Bach to Baseball Cards: Preserving the Nation’s Heritage at the Library of Congress. This web presentation looks at some of the problems […]
The following post is by Mark Eden Horowitz, Senior Music Specialist. On March 22nd, the Music Division of the Library of Congress will present a concert of the 1934 musical revue, Life Begins at 8:40. Though the show and score may not sound familiar, five years later four of the original participants joined forces for […]
The Music Division’s bonnie collections offer a variety of ways to celebrate this St. Patrick’s Day. Play an Irish bagpipe from the Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection. Follow along to the reels described in Rinnce na h-Éireann : a simplified work on the performance of the dances of Ireland, from An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals. Develop […]
Our present-day fascination with the facial hair of yore may have behind it a number of reasons: a yearning for the sartorial elegance of by-gone days; an urge to lampoon the historical patriarchal hegemony; the deep-seated instinct, like that found among birdwatchers and trainspotters, to catalogue the varieties of hirsute experience; a lot of spare […]
Bandleader-accordionist Lawrence Welk was the musical voice of a faraway time in America, before punk rock, hip-hop, and Lady Gaga. The son of German immigrants from the Ukraine, Welk was born in Strasburg, North Dakota on March 11, 1903. The first big break in Welk’s long and storied career came in 1927, when Lawrence Welk […]
The following post is by James Wintle, Reference Specialist. The Music Division of the Library of Congress, in cooperation with the Samuel Barber estate and G. Schirmer, Inc., have created an online exhibition of original manuscripts, correspondence, and performances to commemorate the birth of one of America’s most beloved composers. The web presentation is available […]
Katherine Dunham was an American dancer-choreographer who was best known for incorporating African American, Caribbean, African, and South American movement styles and themes into her ballets. The Katherine Dunham Collection at the Library of Congress consists of moving image materials that document the extraordinary journey of a woman who changed the face of American modern […]
In Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm Macdowell is memorably conditioned to veer from his life of ultra-violence with generous doses of Ludwig Van. But does music really sooth the savage breast? Does blasting Barry Manilow at high volume drive away delinquent teenagers? The answer may surprise you. […]
On this date in 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed the Act establishing “The Star Spangled Banner” as the National Anthem of the United States of America. The Library of Congress has in its collections a treasure trove of sheet music (including a Spanish-language edition), song sheets (including two in German), and recordings of “The Star […]