Increase in catalogue cards.

Public service.

Exhibits.

ACCESSIONS:

music.

In contrast to these figures are the 22,687 cards added to the catalogue during the past year, 1,935 of which were printed cards. This represents an increase of little less than 50 per cent over the total of cards written in the music division during the previous year.

The music division serves a vastly larger public than is comprised by readers on the premises, persons entitled to the "home privilege," and special applicants in libraries of other cities. The division acts as an "information bureau" on a great many topics relating to music, and answers inquiries from all corners of the country. The letter from a little hamlet, asking for a half-remembered stanza of a long-forgotten song, receives the same prompt attention as does the request from an historian in America or Europe for data which may be indispensable to him in his work and are perhaps unobtainable anywhere else.

Three new exhibits have been placed on view, of which two are in the central exhibition hall of the Library. The first was occasioned by the centenary of "Home, sweet home" (May 8, 1923); the second is devoted to masonic song collections of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The third exhibit, in the main office of the music division, is devoted to autographs of famous composers. These specimens include holographs of John Sebastian Bach and three of his sons, Händel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Liszt, Wagner, Rossini, Berlioz, Gounod, and others. The exhibits of Colonial and Civil War music continue.

Satisfactory progress has been made in the task of bringing Contemporary. up to date certain historical and complete editions serially issued, which could not be obtained during the years of war. The accessions among contemporary publications—ranging from clever pieces of American "jazz" to the superb facsimile of Wagner's manuscript score of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"-cover too wide a field to permit a mention of even the most important. Suffice it, therefore, to single

out a few especially fine manuscripts and old editions which the Library has had the good fortune to procure.

The most precious acquisition in this class is the Finale of Beethoven's string-trio, op. 3, in the composer's youthful and clear handwriting. It is the first considerable Beethoven holograph to find its way into the collection. The holograph consists of ten oblong octavo pages, and represents the original, unpublished version of this Finale. Written at Bonn, probably some time between 1790 and 1792, Beethoven revised it in Vienna prior to the publication of the whole work by Artaria, who announced it in the Wiener Zeitung of February 8, 1797. A comparison between this holograph and the printed Finale is illuminating, as it shows Beethoven's growing discernment. Structurally there is no change, except at one point where a modulation stretching over four measures is telescoped into half that length, an illustration of the value of economy as an element of art. However, the last version differs from the first in many small details; particularly is this the case in regard to the "figuration." In the first version it had already been subjected to a good deal of correction, but in the printed text it was made still more idiomatic, indicating that between the time of writing and the publication Beethoven had gained a clearer insight into what string players can or can not conveniently do and so render with more or less effectiveness.

An oblong book, containing 50 neatly written leaves, bears on the faded light-blue cover the words "Clavier Begleitung zu den Concerten in C moll, D dur, Es dur u. G dur." These are piano reductions of the orchestral accompaniments to Beethoven's concerti op. 37, 61, 73, and 58, respectively, made and copied out by Carl Czerny. From the peculiar fact that the arrangements take in only the wind parts and strengthen the bass, it is obvious that they were used in supplementing a string quartet or small

67150°-23-6

Beethoven.

Wagner.

orchestra. At the beginning and end of each concerto is Czerny's signature and the date. The first three arrangements were completed between September 17 and October 23, 1817; the fourth concerto was arranged between May 13 and 17, 1818. Precisely what was the purpose of these skeleton reductions can only be conjectured. But we know that from 1816 to 1820 Czerny was accustomed to invite a chosen few, on Sundays, to hear his pupils play. Beethoven sometimes honored these musical entertainments with his presence, and the master's larger works were often performed in arrangements for two pianos, apparently with the occasional assistance of a few string players.

When Wagner set to music Brünnhilde's farewell, at the end of “Die Götterdämmerung," he decided to cut out some of the lines of his original poem. These lines were omitted from the score, but preserved in a footnote which Wagner appended to the scene in the complete edition of his collected writings. He justified the excision on the ground that, while the deleted lines epitomized the whole spiritual content of his Nibelung tetralogy, they seemed to him superfluous, since the idea they expressed was "given with absolute precision in the drama as set to music." Because of this statement, the impression long prevailed that none of the canceled verses were put to music-a loss deemed the greater as the beautiful lines beginning "Verging wie Hauch der Götter Geschlecht" might, not inaptly, be regarded as the "motto" of the entire "Ring."

Richard Specht, in "Der Merker" (Jan. 1913), first brought to general notice the fact that the sixteen "motto" lines had been set after all. As proof, he offered a facsimile of the music and words in a hand which Adolf von Gross, Wagner's trustee, declared to be Anton Seidl's. It was not Wagner's, of that there could be no doubt. In connection with this copy, Specht related a story told by Amalie Materna, the first singer of Brünnhilde at Bayreuth. This

tale, though it may have sprung from a seed of truth, is not Wagner. quite plausible. According to it, that capricious monarch, King Ludwig of Bavaria, being present at a rehearsal of "Die Götterdämmerung" in the summer of 1876, chanced to learn of a cut in the final scene of the opera and demanded forthwith to hear the discarded passage. A copy was hastily made of it for Materna. Wagner asked her to study it and sing it for the king. left Bayreuth, and the music was never sung. At the time Specht's article appeared, both Wagner's widow and Adolf von Gross declared that no trace could be found of these 33 measures among Wagner's papers, either in his hand or in that of anyone else. Therefore the copy made for Materna was thought to be the only one in existence.

But Ludwig suddenly

The Library of Congress has acquired this suppressed fragment in Wagner's own writing. It is on a gilt-edged sheet measuring 28 x 35 cm., the lines are drawn in pencil, the text and music written in ink, with a fine, large signature in full at the end. At the top are the words "Zur Widmung" a dedication, but to whom? Was it intended for the royal friend? On what occasion did Wagner write this page, and how did it escape the "holders of the hoard" at Wahnfried? Not the least puzzling thing about this unique holograph is that the music differs in a few minor points from the copy reproduced by Specht.

The texts of "Der Ring des Nibelungen," minus "Das Rheingold," were printed in 1872 from the type of the "Collected Writings" then in process of publication, and were bound together in a separate volume for distribution among the friends of the author. A copy of this (third) private issue has come into the possession of the Library, and this copy is of particular interest because of a joint inscription on the half-title, which reads: "Fräulein Anna zu Weihnachten 1872-Richard Wagner-Cosima Wagner geb: Liszt." This mode of address may point to a person in the .

Weber.

Miscellaneous

holographs.

household of Wagner's sister, Ottilie Brockhaus, whose hospitable home in Leipzig repeatedly gave him shelter. In a letter to Ottilie, written in 1871, Wagner mentions "die gute Anna" and suggests that she again prepare accommodations for himself and his wife. Christmas brought a special reward for the lady's continuing kindness in the shape of this inscribed volume.

Among the very last things which Carl Maria von Weber wrote are two oblong pages of ten-line music paper. They contain the whole of the "Preghiera” and the first 14 measures of Fatima's song, "O Araby," in the opera "Oberon." Both numbers were composed after Weber's arrival in London, on March 5, 1826; the song for Fatima was finished on March 24, at 11 p. m.; the "Preghiera” was sketched on April 10 and orchestrated on the 11th, as a last minute's sop to the vanity of the insistent Braham, spoiled tenor-idol of the public. The first performance of "Oberon" took place on the following day, April 12; seven weeks later Weber was dead. The manuscript of the two numbers, for voice and piano, is evidently part of the vocal score finished by Weber on April 22 and handed two days later to Charles Kemble, then manager of Covent Garden Theater, at which the opera was given, for the publishers, Welsh & Hawes. Faint figures in pencil show the engraver's customary divisions, and these divisions agree with the arrangement of the printed page in the Welsh & Hawes score.

The holograph of a canzonetta by Pergolesi ("Non mi negar signora ...") for voice with figured bass is signed by the composer, inscribed "a Fra Bernardo Feo," and dated "a d 1731." It was found in the ruins of a monastery in Messina, after the earthquake, and just in time to save the writing from being washed out by the rain.

Another manuscript, in Gaetano Brunetti's handwriting, is a sonata "a violino solo e basso," composed by him for the Duke of Alba in 1778. Brunetti, before going to