Each issue of MLA’s quarterly journal, Notes, includes a ‘Notes’ column featuring updates and announcements. Content below will appear in September’s issue, but please enjoy a preview here! Thanks to Notes editor Jon Sauceda for providing our ‘sneak peek’!
The Packard Humanities Institute is pleased to announce a new edition: Johann Christian Bach: Operas and Dramatic Works (jcbach.org). Our goal is to make available, in both printed and digital formats, a critical edition of the composer’s operas, an oratorio, and several cantatas. The fifteen volumes include:
- Artaserse
- Catone in Utica
- Alessandro nell’Indie
- Orione, ossia Diana vendicata
- Zanaida
- Adriano in Siria
- Carattaco
- Endimione
- Temistocle
- Amor vincitore
- Lucio Silla
- La clemenza di Scipione
- Amadis de Gaule
- Gioas, re di Giuda
- Cantatas
Each volume contains a critical report with a brief description and evaluation of the sources used for the edition. An introduction provides background on the opera’s first production, along with a brief summary of its plot, and the opera’s reception to the present day. In addition, a modern version of the libretto is included, reflecting the music underlay in Italian or French, as well as an English
translation. The editorial board consists of Margaret R. Butler, Ulrich Leisinger, David W. Packard, Annette Richards, Stephen Roe, Christoph Wolff, and Peter Wollny. The editorial staff consists of Paul Corneilson (Managing Editor), Laura Buch (Editor), and Jason B. Grant (Editor).
Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782), youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, was one of the most gifted composers of the eighteenth century. Unlike his father and brothers, J. C. Bach traveled to Italy, where he studied with Padre Martini in Bologna and learned how to compose opera in the galant style. After making his debut with Artaserse for Turin and writing two operas for Naples, he was called to England in 1762 and eventually became music master to Queen Charlotte. While in London he wrote new operas and arranged pasticcios for the King’s Theatre, and he befriended the young Mozart during his family’s visit to England. In the 1770s, J. C. Bach was commissioned to write two operas for the Mannheim court and one French opera for Paris.
Paul Corneilson
Packard Humanities
A generous grant from the GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program will help the Rita Benton Music Library at the University of
Iowa (https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/music/) to digitize and preserve some of the earliest recordings of Czech music made on American soil. The $11,000 award will assist with a project involving 173 wax and gold-moulded cylinder recordings of Czech music and recitations dating from 1903 to 1908. Endpoint Audio Labs has been engaged to do the audio reformatting, and the university is
partnering with Filip Šír, coordinator for digitization of audio documents for the National Museum in Prague, Czechia, to provide transcription and translations of the audio content. All materials will be made available publicly via the Iowa Digital Library upon project completion.
Katie Buehner
University of Iowa
The RISM Editorial Center announces an opportunity for the international music library community to update RISM’s Series C, the Directory of Music Research Libraries. The Directory is anchored in RISM’s objective to document the locations of musical sources worldwide. Series C provides descriptions of these holding institutions, whether libraries, archives, museums, churches, or
private collections, as well as any institution with materials that support historical music research. Each institution in Series C has a RISM siglum, or an abbreviation, that makes it possible to concisely refer to the institution. Launched in the 1970s, Series C was published in five volumes, with some revisions published up to 2001. Institution sigla and addresses have moved to RISM’s electronic database, but this information has never been systematically revised. Thanks to cooperation with two IAML initiatives, the Project Group on the Access to Music Archives and the Project Group on RISM Series C, RISM’s cataloging program, Muscat, is now optimized for Series C.
At a minimum, the description of an institution in Series C includes the name of the institution, the RISM siglum, and contact information. An entry can also include other forms of the name (former names, nicknames, translations, original script), geocoordinates, a history of the institution, links to web resources and finding aids, and a bibliography of important publications and published catalogs. In RISM’s database, institutions in Series C link to musical sources described in RISM, but Series C is a stand-alone directory. An institution does not need to have holdings in RISM to be included in Series C.
Updates or additions to Series C can be made on the institutional level, or projects can be coordinated around a city, region, or state. Of particular importance is monitoring the status of private collections and informing the Editorial Center when collections move, merge, or become dispersed. The information from Series C is published on the RISM website in the Directory of RISM Library Sigla, in the RISM Catalog, and in RISM Online, and is accessed by thousands of people each year. If you would like to participate in updating
Series C, or if you would like more information, please contact the RISM Editorial Center: contact@rism.info.
Jennifer Ward
Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM)
The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is proud to announce that a recent large accrual to the Leon Fleisher papers is now processed and open for research use. The collection documents Fleisher’s career as an award-winning concert pianist and a Peabody Conservatory faculty member for 61 years until his death in 2020.
After making his debut in 1944 at age sixteen with the New York Philharmonic, Fleisher toured internationally as a soloist for many years, appearing with major orchestras and winning prizes such as the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition in 1952. In 1965, Fleisher began to experience symptoms in his right hand of a neurological condition later diagnosed as focal dystonia,
which limited his ability to perform with both hands. Fleisher subsequently channeled his creativity in new directions, mastering the piano repertoire for left hand and initiating a career in conducting. He renewed his dedication to teaching at the Peabody Conservatory, where he taught generations of piano students, and at the Curtis Institute of Music. New therapies in the mid-1990s helped him regain
sufficient use of his right hand for two-handed playing, leading to an extraordinary career renaissance.
The Fleisher collection at Peabody contains thousands of programs, letters, and professional files documenting the career of a prolific musician and educator. Of the 250 scores with Fleisher’s annotations, more than half are of music for piano left hand, including works composed for Fleisher by Gunther Schuller, William Bolcom, and Leon Kirchner. A three-volume set of Beethoven sonatas contains markings by Fleisher the child prodigy during his studies with Artur Schnabel in the 1930s.
More than 250 sound and video recordings of Fleisher have been digitized and are now available through the Arthur Friedheim Library’s streaming collections. Highlights include recitals at Carnegie Hall in the 1940s and concerto performances conducted by Pierre Monteux and George Szell. There are many live recordings of Fleisher’s interpretations of piano repertoire for left hand alone,
such as the Concerto for the Left Hand by Maurice Ravel. The recordings also include videos of Fleisher leading piano master classes at Peabody and at various keyboard festivals. Information on how to access the collection is available at
https://musiclibrary.peabody.jhu.edu/fleisher.
Matthew Testa
Arthur Friedheim Library, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University