Walter Meyer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>"We often read exciting news of lost or previously unknown original
>manuscripts of scores by famous composers (Bach and, I believe, Beethoven,
>come to mind) suddenly being discovered in the Library of Congress or the
>libraries of Ivy league type universities.  ...  How do these relics find
>their way across the ocean into our libraries and why does nobody know
>about them until their unexpected discovery? And how do the discovering
>scholars know enough to be looking for them in the right places?

One one there is a lot of scholarly detective work in tracing these lost
pieces.  But on the other hand there is just pure sheer luck in finding
the manuscripts.  For most music of the 16th-early 19th centuries, the
composers were writing either for a court or they were writing for a
church, and both institutions were pretty good at keeping archives.  Both
had paid officals who would keep the mundane and boring facts & figures of
day-to-day life that were the basis of running such large establishments.
Haydn's patron Prince Esterhazy's archives survived intact through two
world wars, allowing H.  C.  Robbins-Landon the ability to flesh out his
multi volumue biography of Haydn; and find manuscript sources to find
create new performing editions of his music.

Sometimes the archives (especially music manuscripts) would be sold off
for funds, due to the varying nature of currencies or the instable nature
of the noblemans' treasuries, but the good thing this is these sales of
archives would leave a paper trail for later scholars to track down
manuscripts.  But many of the archive trails are completely cold:  some
archives are just completely missing with substantial loses.  For example:
the music archives for Salzburgs' Princes-Archbishops vanished (major
losses of works by Leopold Mozart, Michael Hadyn, and many other composers
who worked therel).  The court archives for the Duke of Weimar and the Duke
of Cothen vanished:  along with over 300 works by J.S.  Bach, plus whatever
other works.

Kim Patrick Clow <[log in to unmask]>