A recent score arrival highlights an interesting musical connection between Stanford and Fisk Universities. Salute, a fanfare for four b-flat trumpets and optional percussion by the American composer Walter Piston (1894-1976), was written for the Thirteenth Festival of Music and Fine Art at Fisk University in Nashville, held in 1942. The piece was commissioned by Harold C. Schmidt, Director of Choirs and Chair of the Music Department.
The Archive of Recorded Sound has recently processed two notable collections, covering very different musical genres.
Helen Colijn (1920-2006) was held captive in a Japanese prison camp on the island of Sumatra for three and one half years during World War II. One remarkable survival mechanism for some of the prisoners at the Women’s Barracks Camp in Palembang was making music, and a series of concerts was prepared and given in which the women sang a cappella arrangements of great works of Western Art music. The music was arranged by Margaret Dryburgh and Norah Chambers. Programs included Dvorak’s Largo from the New World Symphony, the Pastoral from Handel’s Messiah, Chopin’s ‘Raindrop’ Prelude, and Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile, among many other works.
Piano music. Concertos. Songs. Orchestral and chamber works. Operas. The complete recorded works of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) are now available for borrowing from the Music Library. This limited-edition, 32-disc set from the Decca Classics label features some of the greatest performers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martha Argerich, Mikhail Pletnev, Jorge Bolet, Elisabeth Söderström, Olga Borodina, Alexander Ghindon, Sviatislav Richter, and Zoltán Kocsis, among many others. Orchestras include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and more.
For your browsing pleasure, these titles have recently joined our reference collection. In no particular order:
A dictionary for the modern clarinetist / Jane Ellsworth
Béla Bartók : a research and information guide / Elliott Antokoletz, Paolo Susanni (3rd ed.)
Compilations of musical works usually evoke images of audio cassettes, burned CDs, or playlists, but here at the Archive of Recorded Sound we’ve been uncovering compilations of a different flavor: conjoined piano rolls.
For your browsing pleasure, we present the following list of new scores added to composer complete editions, historical sets, and facsimiles:
Beethoven. Festspiele von 1812 und 1822. Werke / Beethoven ; herausgegeben von Beethoven-Archiv, Bonn, unter Leitung von Joseph Schmidt-Görg.
Elgar. The concertos (second edition) Elgar complete edition. Borough Green, Kent : Novello, c1981-<c2014 >
The Archive of Recorded Sound is pleased to announce the acquisition and recently completed processing of the Art Vincent Jazz Collection. The collection features over 800 hours of interviews, broadcasts, and call-in segments primarily created for the radio program Art of Jazz, produced and presented by Art Vincent (1926-1993), Jazz DJ and concert producer. The show aired on radio stations in the New York Metropolitan area between 1961 and the mid 1980s, including WFHA, WJLK, WRLB, and WGBO. In addition to some live concert recordings, the show notably featured interviews with major figures in the jazz world, such as Stan Kenton, Count Basie, Buddy DeFranco, Woody Herman, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Lou Rawls, Roy Eldridge, Skitch Henderson, Art Farmer, Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson, Stan Getz, Louis Armstrong, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, Benny Goodman, Stephane Grappelli, Dizzy Gillespie, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Vera Auer, Ruth Brown, Betty Carter, Etta Jones, Sheila Jordan, Nellie Lutcher, Anita O'Day, Shirley Scott, Maxine Sullivan, Nancy Wilson, and many others.