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The Music Collection of the Staats- Und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg: A Survey of its British Holdings Prior to the Second World War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
The extent of the music holdings of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg, has never been revealed in print, and, except for a few recent publications dealing with a select number of its extant sources, there has been little comment about the losses it sustained during the Second World War (in 1919 the library's name was changed from ‘Stadtbibliothek’ to ‘Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek’, and in 1983 it acquired its present name ‘Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky‘). Prior to its dispersal and partial destruction during the Second World War, the Hamburg library's music collection compared favourably to other great music libraries of the day such as those in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. That the Hamburg library now possesses only a small quantity of its original holdings is a cause for much lament, but since detailed descriptions survive of all its pre-War materials, musicologists are afforded some remarkable insights into its sources, many of which have escaped scholarly attention; the descriptions are found in a manuscript catalogue compiled by the brilliant nineteenth-century bibliographer Arrey von Dommer (1828–1905). Dommer's catalogue reveals that in the late nineteenth century the Hamburg library possessed an extensive amount of music, both printed and manuscript, and that its collection of British music, though smaller than its holdings of German and Italian music, was very significant—the richness of its British materials reflects the particular interest of the collector Friedrich Chrysander (1826–1901), from whom much of the library's music was obtained.
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- Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1997
References
1 I should like to thank Dr Jürgen Neubacher, the Director of the Musiksammlung of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, and other staff of the library, including Frau Helga Heim and Frau Marion Sommer, for their kind assistance during my visits to the library. Furthermore, I should like to thank Dr Neubacher for providing information about the collection, including a copy of one of his publications, and—following my own multiple checking of the material—for kindly checking the citations in the section ‘The British Materials in Arrey von Dommer's Catalogue’. I should also like to express my gratitude to the Australian Research Council for its financial assistance.Google Scholar
For the recent publications, mostly concerning specific sources in the collection (some of them recently returned to the library), see: H. Gronemeyer, ‘Feierliche Übergabe der aus der DDR zurückgekehrten Hss, am 29, Nov, 1989', Auskunft, 10 (1990), 7–18; idem, ‘Musikbibliothek der SUB Hamburg kehrte zurück', Auskunft, 11 (1991), 179–181; Richard Charteris, ‘A Rediscovered Manuscript Source with Some Previously Unknown Works by John Jenkins, William Lawes and Benjamin Rogers’ Chelys, 22 (1993), 3–29; idem, ‘Newly Discovered Sources of Music by Henry Purcell’, Music & Letters, 75 (1994), 16–32, 659; Hans Joachim Marx, ‘Eine Wiederaufgefundene Serenata theatrale von John Sigismond Cousser und ihr politscher Kontext’, Rudolf Eller zum Achtzigsten: Ehrenkolloquium zum 80. Geburtstag von Prof. em. Dr. Rudolf Eller am 9. Mai 1994; veranstaltet vom Institut fuer Musikwissenschaft im 60. Jahr seines Bestehens am 11. Mai 1994; 575 Jahre Universität Rostock, 1419–1994, ed. Karl Heller and Andreas Waczkat (Rostock, 1995), 33–40; Jürgen Neubacher, ‘Hamburg: B. Sammlungen und Bibliotheken’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Ludwig Finscher, Sachteil (2nd edn, Kassel, 1995), iii, cols. 1773–5, 1778–80; and idem, Die Musikbibliothek des Hamburger Kantors und Musikdirectors Thomas Seile (1599–1663). Rekonstruktion des ursprünglichen und Beschreibung des erhaltenen, überwiegend in der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky aufbewahrten Bestandes, Musicological Studies & Documents, 52 (Neuhausen, 1997).Google Scholar
2 For further details about Dommer, see: G. Zedier, ‘Arrey von Dommer (1828–1905). Musikwissenschaftler und Bibliothekar’, Lebensbilder aus Kurhessen und Waldeck 1830–1930, ed. Ingeborg Schnack, 1 (Marburg, 1939), Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen und Waldeck, 20, pp. 92–95; Gaynor G. Jones, ‘Dommer, Arrey von’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (6th edn, London, 1980), v, 539.Google Scholar
3 For further details about Chrysander, see: A. Hyatt King, Handel and his Autographs (London, 1967), 13–14; idem, ‘Frederick Nicolay, Chrysander, and the Royal Music Library, The Monthly Musical Record, 89 (January-February, 1959), 13–24; Anthony Hicks, ‘Chrysander, (Karl Franz) Friedrich', The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (6th edn, London, 1980), iv, 378–379.Google Scholar
4 For information about the history of the library, see: Werner Kayser, 500 Jahre wissenschaftliche Bibliothek in Hamburg 1479–1979. Von der Ratsbücherei zur Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Mitteilungen aus der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 8 (Hamburg, 1979); and Christian Petersen, Geschichte der Hamburgischen Stadtbibliothek (Hamburg, 1838). Also, see Dr Jürgen Neubacher's publications cited in n.1; my account of the library's history and its collections draws heavily on his work.Google Scholar
5 Among the items in the second component of Chrysander's collection acquired in 1956 were many English music prints and manuscripts dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; these items, which are included in the relevant RISM catalogues, are not mentioned in the section ‘The British Materials in Arrey von Dommer's Catalogue’ because they were acquired after the Second World War.Google Scholar
6 The relevant records, entitled Fluchtgutlisten, are found without pressmark in the Bibliotheksarchiv, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky. For further details about these records, see Otto-Ernst Krawehl, ‘Verlagert-verschollen-zum Teil restituiert. Das Schicksal der im 2. Weltkrieg ausgelagerten Bestände der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, 83 (1997), 237–77.Google Scholar
7 See Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, 361–5 I Hochschulwesen I Reg. Spez. C I 29a Band I; the latter documents were kindly brought to my attention by Dr Jürgen Neubacher and are mentioned in Richard Charteris, ‘Further Information about the Hamburg Purcell Sources’, Music & Letters, 75 (1994), 659.Google Scholar
8 Additional comments about some of the manuscripts of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg, appear in an article that I am preparing concerning new material relating to an eighteenth-century British collectorGoogle Scholar