Performing Arts Materials in Library Special Collections

Seventeenth- through nineteenth-century opera

• Raccolta di Drammi (Venetian opera libretto collection): 1286 published librettos, bound in chronological order, comprehensively representing Venetian opera productions between 1637 and 1769.
• Additional extensive holdings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French and Italian opera librettos
• Early printed editions, including first editions, of full scores and piano vocal scores of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century operas. Composers include Adam, Auber, Beethoven, Bellini, Boieldieu, Destouches, Donizetti, Gluck, Grétry, Halevy, Haydn, Lully, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Paer, Paisiello, Pergolesi, Philidor, Pinnini, Rossini, Sacchini, and Spohr

Ballads and songs of the British Isles

• Published eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English ballads

History and theory of western music

• Original editions of early music dictionaries, encyclopedias, essays, and histories, including:
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique (1764)
  • Charles Burney, A general history of music (1782-1789)
  • Heinrich Christoph Koch, Musikalishes Lexikon (1802)
  • M. de Laborde, Recherches sur l'analogie de la musique avec les arts (1807)
  • Gustav Schilling, Encyclopädie ... oder Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst (1835)
  • A variety of early printed chant books and sixteenth-century part-books
• Original editions of theoretical works, critical writings, and pedagogical works, including:
  • Daniel Gottlob Türk, Klavierschule (1802)
  • Louis Adam, Méthode de piano du Conservatoire (1805)
  • Carl Czerny, Impromptus... (1826)
  • Nicolo Paganini Variazioni sur Barucaba (1850)
  • Élémens de musique, théorique et pratique suivant les principes de M. Rameau (1759)
• Early printed editions including first editions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century chamber and piano music, including works by J.C. Bach, Beethoven, Boccherini, Cherubini, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, Pleyel (especially strong holdings), and Schubert
• Published facsimiles of music manuscripts and imprints from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century; examples of particularly fine, limited-edition facsimiles from the Middle Ages include:
  • Squarcialupi Codex (early fifteenth century; fourteenth-century Italian repertoire)
  • St. Katherine Graduale (ca. 1312)
  • Codex Calixtinus (twelfth century)