The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library

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Past Exhibits

Jazz at Yale, Fall-Winter, 2006-2007. A sampling of treasures featuring material from the Benny Goodman Papers, Duke Ellington's manuscript of The Golden Broom and the Green Apple, and photographs of many jazz luminaries such as Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughan from the Stanley Dance and Helen Oakley Dance Papers and the Frederick and Rose Plaut Papers.

Inside Harkness Tower:  A History of Chime and Carillon Music at Yale, May-July, 2006.

Cycles in Science and Cycles in Music, by Lloyd Ackert, April-May, 2006.  The impetus for this exhibit was Ackert's study of Russian microbiologist Sergei Vinogradskii (1856-1953), who trained as a musician and studied with the great pianist and pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky (1830-1915).  Uses of cycles in the works of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) and Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) are considered.  The exhibit is part of The Cycle of Life:  An Exhibit, Virtual and Physical, on display in nine locations in the Yale University Library.  Ackert is the Yale Special Collections Humanities Fellow.

Treasures from the Special Collections of the Music Library and the American Musical Theatre Collection, August-September, 2005.  A sampling of music manuscripts and editions, photographs, and realia aimed to please many tastes in music.

John Kirkpatrick: A Century of American Music, March-May, 2005.  Documents the life and work of the virtuoso pianist, insightful advisor to composers (most notably Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles), meticulous editor and scholar, and dedicated teacher.

Theorica Musicae, October 2004-March 2005.  Notable theoretical treatises and works spanning the fifteenth through twentieth centuries.

Before They Were Famous, May-October, 2004.  Baby pictures (and a quiz) from a variety of collections.

Vladimir Horowitz: Pianist of the Century, February-May, 2004.  Celebrating the centennial of Horowitz's birth with documents from the Vladmir and Wanda Toscanini Horowitz Papers.

Musicians and Their Pets, curated by Julie Niemeyer, online as of June 2003.  The exhibit draws materials from eleven of the library's archival collections.  Its goal is to provide a glimpse into the personal lives of some of the worlds's greatest musicians and their devoted four-footed companions. The exhibit was on display during the Fall Term of 2002.

Recent Acquisitions in the Exhibit Case on the Mezzanine Level:

Three recent acquisitions relating to Muzio Clementi. December 2006.
    1) An autograph letter from Clementi to Giulio Ricordi, dated June 27, 1830;
    2) Six Sonatas for the Piano Forte or Harpsichord, with an Accompanyment for a Violin or Flute, Op. IV (London: John Welcker, 1780); and
    3) Trois sonates pour clavecin ou forte piano, oeuvre XXVI (i.e. op. 25) (Paris: Sieber, ca. 1800)

Photographs in celebration of Halloween featuring Paul Hindemith in costume, from MSS 93, The Howard and Helen Boatwright Papers.

John Dowland, Lachrimæ: Or Seaven Teares Figured in Seaven Passionate Pauans, with Diuers other Pauans, Galiards, and Almands ... (London: John Windet, [1604]). October 2005.

Franz Schreker Conducts.  Compact disc set made from originals in the Collection of Historical Sound Recordings.  April 2005-October 2005.

Frederic Chopin.  First editions of four piano works.  October-November 2004.

Virgil Thomson, "Scenes from the Holy Infancy According to St. Matthew," No. 3: "The Flight into Egypt," holograph pencil score. January-May 2004.

Girolamo Frescobaldi. Canzoni alla francese (Venice: Allessandro Vincenti, 1645). Bound with: Fiori musicali di diverse compositioni: toccate,  kirie, canzoni, capricci, e recercari (Venice: Allessandro Vincenti, 1635). August-December, 2003.

Psalmen / Geystliche Lieder und Gesaenge  sambt etlicher Gebetten  von D. Mar. Luth. auch anderer gottseliger Lehrer und Maenner … (Straßburg: Theodosius Riehel, 1571). June-July, 2003.

Old News

December 2006: The library has a trial subscription to Naxos Music Library, an online database of sound recordings, primarily of western art music, but also including jazz, blues, world and Chinese music. Recording labels represented in the database include the complete Naxos, Marco Polo, and Da Capo catalogs, plus selected recordings from other licensed independent labels such as ABC Classics, Amadis, Analekta, Artek, ARC, BIS, Bridge Records, CBC, Celestial Harmonies, Collegium Records, First Edition, Gimell, Hanssler Classic, Hungaraton, Middle Kingdom, PentaTone, Prophone, Propria, Signum Classics, Trust Records, White Cloud, and Yellow River. The sound files are sent by streaming audio and cannot be downloaded. The subscription allows five users to listen simultaneously--please remember to logout when you have finished listening. Should this service be busy, listeners can also try the Classical Music Library and Smithsonian Global Sound audio databases.

March 2006: RIPM has changed its coverage and name, and the library has changed online vendors.  Formerly RIPM: International Index to Nineteenth-Century Music Periodicals, the coverage of periodical articles has been extended to 1950 and the work is now titled RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (1800-1950). For titles recently added, see http://www.ripm.org.  The library now subscribes to the online version through OCLC's FirstSearch service, the same vendor through which we receive RILM, which means that both databases can be searched simultaneously.  To search RIPM, please click here.

November 2005:  The library now subscribes to two online audio databases, Classical Music Library and Smithsonian Global Sound, which includes folk, jazz, blues, and spoken word (oral history, language instruction), and more.

Online subscriptions to current issues of the University of California Press journals are now available, through the Press's Caliber service, including 19th-Century Music, Journal of Musicology, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Music Perception, and Music Theory Spectrum.

December 2003:  The Music-In-Print Series is now available online as Emusicquest.  The database presents researchers with a choice of instrumental genres first; after choosing a genre, researchers may search by composer, title, or keyword.  The database provides information on publishers and American distributors of printed musical works. In some cases, it provides prices and indicates whether a work is in print or not. The database is also useful for identifying anthologies that contain shorter musical works, thus complementing the information in Orbis (which does not always identify the shorter works in anthologies and collections).  Note that the information contained in String Music in Print, by Margaret Farish (1973), is not part of this database.

June 2003: Finding Aids for 57 archival collections are now part of the Yale University Library Finding Aid Database.  Among these are the finding aids for the papers of  J.R. Johnson, Cole Porter, Vladimir Horowitz, Leo Ornstein, Carl Ruggles, Virgil Thomson, Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, and the South Before the War Company.  Of special note is the recent online version of James Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), as well as the separate finding aid for the remainder of the Ives Papers.  For a list of archival collections in the Music Library and the American Musical Theatre Collection, see the checklist Archival Papers in the Music Library of Yale University.

April 2003:The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., is now part of Grove Music Online, the online encyclopedia that includes The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.  Access to the database is through the library's "Databases & Article Searching" webpage.

The library now subscribes to the online version of RISM A/II: International Inventory of Musical Sources: Manuscripts since 1600 through Biblioline, the same vendor through which we also subscribe to RIPM: International Index to Nineteenth-Century Periodicals.   The online version supersedes online version formerly available through the Harvard website and the microfiche version (SML, Music Library, Microfiche 60). Other parts of RISM are available in paper in the Reference Room Ref ML113 I61.

January 2002:  The microfilm runs of Billboard and Down Beat have been transferred permanently to the Sterling Memorial Library Microform Reading Room. These titles are heavily used by undergraduates and graduate students in several academic departments, including Music, History, and American Studies. By this transfer, the films should be much more accessible to readers, who will now be able to retrieve film nights and weekends. The Orbis records have been updated to reflect the change. The new call numbers are Film S3857 for Billboard, and Film S3858 for Down Beat.The current paper issues of Billboard and Down Beat will continue to be housed in the Music Library. Billboard is usually kept for the current half-year or year, until the microfilm arrives to replace it. Down Beat is a split file: 1937-1974 only are on film and now in SML; 1975 to the present are bound or in current issues and kept in the Music Library Periodicals Collection.

Past Events

April 21, 2007. Remembering David Kraehenbuehl: A One-Day Conference
A series of speeches, an oral history, and a piano master class were among the events that addressed David Kraehenbuehl's (1923-1997) contributions as a composer, a music educator, and a music theorist. The conference finale was a performance of Kraehenbuehl's rarely heard masterpiece Drumfire for chorus and orchestra. The conference was sponsored by the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library and the David Kraehenbuehl Society, with additional support provided by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Yale School of Music, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the Neighborhood Music School. More information: PDF, html.

July 25-27, 2003. Annual Meeting of the Historic Brass Society. Concerts and scholarly papers from the world of historical brass instruments and performance.

April 7, 2003:  The descendants of Gustave Langenus presented his archives to the library. Langenus was one of the most famous clarinet players and teachers of the twentieth century.  The program included presentations about Langenus by scholars, former students, and family members, as well as musical selections performed by Yale clarinet faculty and students.

April 12-13, 2003:  A conference celebrating Jewish Music at Yale included performances by Brave Old World, Antares, and Yale music students; papers dealing with Jewish theater music, sacred music, and celebration and community; and an exhibit of music from the Wallersteiner Collection in the Music Library (on display in Sterling Memorial Library).  For more information, please see the conference website.