Bibliorarities 2009-2010

The Conservatory Library's Special Collections are the focus of the year-long series of exhibits, Bibliorarities. The exhibits are on view in the cases adjacent to the Conservatory Library's Circulation Area during all opening hours.

October–November 2009
CONDUCTORS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

How does a conductor communicate when off the podium? Here is a glimpse at the thoughts of Bruno Walter, George Szell, Leopold Stokowski, and Erich Leinsdorf in samples of their manuscript correspondence.

November–December 2009
CARTER SCRAPBOOK

Explore the Leipzig concert life of 1878–1881 as privately documented by Howard Handel Carter, Oberlin alumnus (1874) and Professor of Piano (1881–1923), in this compilation of clippings and programs. Compare it further with the library’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, as indexed in RIPM.

December 2009–January 2010
MOZART’S COSI FAN TUTTE

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Mozart's birth in 2006, the Packard Humanities Institute began publishing facsimile editions of Mozart's last seven operas. About this series conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt offered, “I am overjoyed that this important facsimile edition of the Mozart operas could finally be realized. A tremendous dream of musicians has come true!” Featured here is Cosi fan Tutte, purchased by the Friends of the Library.

January–February 2010
GOODMAN MISCELLANY

This curious bit of Americana compiled by the music engraver, piano maker, and pedagogue John Goodman of Frankfort, Kentucky, dates from ca. 1800. It includes 45 pages of manuscript and offers a rich counterpoint to a volume found in Harvard’s Houghton Library.

February–March 2010
CODEX CHANTILLY, MS. 564

This facsimile of the collection Epitome Musical features French songs and motets from the late 14th c. Visually striking examples of ars subtilior, an experimental rhythmic notation, are evidenced here in compositions by Cordier and Machaut, among others. Believed to have been commissioned by a Florentine family, the manuscript remained in Florence until 1861, when it was brought to Chantilly.

March–April 2010
LATE-RENAISSANCE PARTBOOKS

History reveals its many layers in these two rare quartos, a 1588 printing of Palestrina’s Motettorum liber secundus and the first edition of Claude Le Jeune’s Second livre des méslanges (Paris, 1612). The former work is rife with wormholes, while the latter bears some eighteenth-century “doodling.”

April–May 2010
MASTERCLASSES ON DVD

The Friends of the Library purchased the first set of masterclasses produced by the Masterclass Media Foundation. Among the prominent artists of our time who describe their artistry are keyboard artist András Schiff; violinists Maxim Vengerov and Zakhar Bron; violist Yuri Bashmet; cellists Steven Isserlis (an Oberlin alum!) and Frans Helmerson; and vocalists Thomas Quasthoff and Joan Rodgers, as well as Håkan Hardenberger on trumpet; Evelyn Glennie on percussion; Gábor Takács-Nagy coaching chamber music; and Bernard Haitink on conducting.

Interested in past exhibits of the Conservatory Library?

See Bibliorarities 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009