Collector or Curator

(b Hornborga, Västergötland, May 6, 1785; d Enköping, Sept 25, 1871). Swedish pastor and folksong collector. After studying theology, he took a clerical post in Stockholm from 1809 to 1820, and from 1820 was pastor in Enköping. In 1811 he became a member of the Götiska Förbund and was deeply involved in the collecting of early folk tales, poems and melodies. He was an amateur flautist, but had little training in music; his friends helped him notate the melodies he heard.

Afzelius was the first to notate and publish the folksong Näckens polska, which he heard sung by a peasant girl in Småland in 1810, and to which he later wrote the poem Djupt i havet; the melody and text were printed in the journal Iduna in 1812. He collaborated with Erik Gustaf Geijer in the three-volume collection, Svenska folkvisor (1814–17), and supplied a number of melodies for Olof Åhlström’s anthology, ...

(b Grevesmühlen, Mecklenburg, Germany, March 13, 1822; d at sea, May 7, 1875). American viola player, clarinettist, writer, and collector of music literature of German birth. An original member of the Germania Musical Society, Albrecht toured the United States with the orchestra 1848–54. His Skizzen aus dem Leben der Musik-Gesellschaft Germania is the only known recollection of the ensemble by a member. A shorter, unsigned, but very similar account appeared in the New York Musical World (2 September 1854). A lifelong follower of Etienne Cabet’s Icarian communism, Albrecht described the Germania as sharing its precepts of equality in rights, duties, and rewards.

Albrecht’s passion for music literature had been encouraged by Siegfried Dehn in Berlin, where the future Germanians met. While touring with the orchestra, Albrecht amassed a collection of at least 661 volumes. Dwight’s Journal acknowledged in 1854 that this was the largest collection in the United States. Albrecht sold his library to Joseph Drexel in ...

(b Barcelona, March 27, 1862; d Barcelona, March 31, 1908). Spanish composer, folklorist and music critic. He studied composition with Antonio Nicolau and Anselmo Barba and piano with C.G. Vidiella in Barcelona and was music critic for various journals there, including La renaixensa, L'avenç and, from 1905 to 1908, El poble català. He published his Collecció de 6 melodies per a cant i piano and five Cansons per cant i piano (both Barcelona, 1887), which are settings of poems by Angel Guimerá, Francisco Matheu y Fornells, Apeles Mestres and Jacinto Verdaguer. He illustrated the latter volume himself, and some of his work was displayed at an exhibition of the Sociedad de Acuarelistas in Barcelona. A distinguished folklorist as well as a sensitive composer and skilful melodist, he collected Catalan folksongs and published arrangements of 23 of these in Cansons populars catalanas (Barcelona, 1891). He used native rhythms and melodies in his songs and piano pieces (among them ...

(b Hofterup, Malmöhus län, July 29, 1864; d Lund, March 31, 1921). Swedish collector of folk music. He took degrees in philosophy and law at the University of Lund, in which town he held a succession of legal and official appointments. His principal interest outside his professional work was folk music, and it was on his initiative that the Folkmusikkommissionen was formed in 1908. He made a notable collection of some 12,000 melodies (songs, dances, wedding marches and herdsman’s calls) which were later edited and published by Olof Andersson as Svenska låtar (Stockholm, 1922–40/R).

(b Croydon, South London, UK, April 11, 1863; d Oxford, Feb 9, 1939). English ethnographer, museum curator, and collector. He was appointed first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (GB.O.prm), in 1893, having worked there as assistant from its foundation in 1884, and continued as curator until his death. He enriched the collection enormously by contacting every anthropologist he knew, through the Royal Anthropological Institute of which he became President, and government officers and administrators in districts all over the British possessions, asking them to acquire objects of ethnographic interest with as much documentation as possible. He travelled widely and acquired many objects himself, all of which, more than 15,000 items including hundreds of musical instruments, he bequeathed to the museum. Consequently the Pitt Rivers became one of the world’s great ethnographic museums, particularly rich in folk and non-Western musical instruments, most of them well documented with photographs and often with field recordings. Balfour published ...

(b Exeter, Jan 28, 1834; d Lewtrenchard, Devon, Jan 2, 1924). English clergyman, folksong collector, novelist and writer. He was educated at Cambridge (MA, 1856), ordained in 1864, and on his father’s death in 1872 he inherited the family estates at Lewtrenchard, where he became rector in 1881 and served as a Justice of the Peace. He travelled extensively and wrote voluminously on theological and general topics; he was also a pioneer in the collection of English folksong. Between 1888 and 1891 he published 110 examples, transcribed from performances by singers in Devon and Cornwall, as Songs and Ballads of the West. The collection was made jointly with the Rev. H.F. Sheppard, sub-dean of the Savoy Chapel, with whom Baring-Gould also collaborated to produce A Garland of Country Song (1895) and English Minstrelsie (1895–6). Their first joint publications in the field preceded by several years the folksong collections of W.A. Barrett, Frank Kidson, John Stokoe and J.A. Fuller Maitland, and were themselves preceded only by John and Lucy Broadwood’s ...

(b Széplak, April 7, 1799; d Mainz, Oct 4, 1854). Hungarian composer, theatre director and collector of folksongs. He came from a Hungarian noble family and embarked on a career in the civil service; it was not until 1829 that he first appeared on the musical scene, when he and Lajos Menner founded and became directors of the first Pest singing school. Bartay was one of the first to publish Hungarian folksongs: in 1833–4 he published a two-volume collection Eredeti nép-dalok klavir-kísérettel (‘Original folksongs with piano accompaniment’), and in 1834 he brought out one of the earliest Hungarian books on music theory, Magyar Apollo.

In 1837 his comic opera Aurelia, oder Das Weib am Konradstein had its première at the Pest Town Theatre, and in 1839 his comic opera Csel (‘Ruse’) was first performed at the Pest Hungarian Theatre as Ferenc Erkel's benefit performance (Erkel later composed variations on themes from this opera). Bartay was director of the National Theatre in ...

(b Mladcová, nr Gottwaldov, March 16, 1837; d Mladcová, June 11, 1906). Moravian folksong collector and dialectologist. He was educated at the Gymnasium in Olomouc and at the University of Vienna and became a schoolteacher in Strážnice (1864), Olomouc, Těšín and in 1869 at the first Czech Gymnasium in Brno. From 1888 he directed the second Czech Gymnasium in Old Brno, where he was in contact with Janáček. In collaboration with other schoolteachers and organists, he organized the collecting, categorizing and editing of Moravian folksongs, and through his four published collections and about 4000 other folksongs which appeared in ethnographic monographs he became recognized as the successor to Sušil, the pioneer of Moravian ethnomusicology.

Like many other early scholars in European folk music, Bartoš sometimes changed the song texts, thereby reducing the documentary value of his collections; from a musical point of view, only part of his third collection (...

(b Paris, April 11, 1791; d Niort, Deux Sèvres, Dec 21, 1863). French composer, folk music collector, musical philanthropist and writer on music. He studied the violin with Rodolphe Kreutzer and composition with Benincori before entering the Paris Conservatoire in Méhul’s class. In 1810 he won the Prix de Rome, but instead of going to Italy as the prize required, he settled at Niort and became engaged to Françoise Caroline Rouget de Gourcez, whom he married in 1816. He nonetheless continued to meet the other requirements of the prize, including the submission of both sacred and secular compositions which show him to have been a well-trained though conservative musician. In 1818, the year after Méhul’s death, Beaulieu wrote his most ambitious work, a Requiem in his teacher’s memory.

Beaulieu’s contributions to musical life in Western France were substantial. In 1827 he founded a philharmonic society in Niort to perform vocal music from the 16th century to the 18th, as well as modern works. Eight years later he established a more serious organization, the Association Musicale de l’Ouest; it sponsored annual concert series in Niort, Poitiers, La Rochelle and elsewhere that involved regional professionals and amateurs in large-scale choral works, as well as chamber and orchestral repertory. Under its aegis Mendelssohn’s ...

(b Leipzig, July 17, 1804; d Leipzig, Oct 26, 1877). German organist, musicologist, music collector and bibliographer. He was educated at the Thomasschule under Johann Gottfried Schicht, and also studied with the organists Friedrich Schneider and Johann Andreas Dröbs. He played the violin in the Gewandhaus Orchestra (1820–33) and in the theatre orchestra (1821–4). He was organist at the Peterskirche (1825–37) and later at the Nikolaikirche (1837–54). When the Leipzig Conservatory was founded in 1843, Mendelssohn invited Becker to become its first organ professor; among his pupils was William Rockstro. He also gave organ recitals in Leipzig and other German cities.

In his twenties Becker began to collect early printed music and manuscripts as well as musical literature. Based on his important library he published bibliographies, editions of older music and many articles in such periodicals as the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung...

(b Copenhagen, March 2, 1801; d Copenhagen, Nov 8, 1880). Danish folklorist, teacher and composer. He began composing and playing the flute while still in school. After his matriculation he studied law for a time, but influenced by the composer C.E.F. Weyse he soon dedicated himself to music and attracted attention in 1823 with a cantata for the 200th anniversary of Regensen, the students' college in Copenhagen. Over the next few years he composed several more cantatas as well as incidental music for the Royal Theatre. From 1838 he was organist at the Trinitatis Kirke, and from 1843 singing master at the metropolitan school. He held both posts until his death; they led him to an intensive occupation with church and school singing. He composed a notable set of hymn melodies, many of which are still used in the Danish Church, and edited many collections of partsongs for schools, containing several of his own compositions. He also made an important collection of Danish and foreign folksongs and melodies. In ...

(b Nijmegen, Netherlands, Aug 4, 1812; d Delft, Netherlands, Nov 1, 1896). Dutch musician, music historian, and instrument collector. The son of a musician and instrument seller, he studied flute and violin at the conservatory of The Hague. After positions as an orchestra musician in the Court Chapel and the French Opera of The Hague, with the Casino Paganini in Paris, and as a conductor at the opera of Metz, he returned in 1841 to his native city, where he conducted several choral societies. In 1853 he was appointed city music director in Delft.

Boers was a pioneer of the study of early music in the Netherlands. He started collecting musical instruments about 1870, with an emphasis on the work of Dutch builders. Most of his research on organology has remained sketchy and is unpublished. In 1899 the major part of his collection of some 130 instruments (including a Couchet harpsichord of ...

(b Avignon, France, May 18, 1854; d Versailles, France, May 20, 1933). Organist, composer, collector, and writer on musical instruments. Born a count into an old Norman family, he studied organ with Gigout in Paris in the late 1880s and was admitted to the Académie des Sciences Morales, des Lettres et des Arts de Versailles in 1891. Beginning in 1897, de Bricqueville played the organ in the chapel of the palace of Versailles for about 20 years. Writing as a music critic, he enthusiastically promoted Wagner but also appreciated earlier French opera. His studies of historical instruments, instrument collecting, and music iconography, while largely superseded by later research, offer valuable insight to the state of scholarship at the turn of the 20th century. He described his private collection of instruments (mainly European of the preceding three centuries) in three published catalogues, the last being Catalogue sommaire de la collection d’instruments de musique anciens formée par le Cte de Bricqueville...

(b Melrose, Aug 8, 1858; d Dropmore, nr Canterbury, Aug 22, 1929). English folksong collector and scholar. The great-granddaughter of John Broadwood (1732–1812), founder of the piano firm, and daughter of Henry Fowler Broadwood (1811–93), she spent her youth at the family home at Lyne, Sussex, where she developed an interest in local folksong. Inspired by her uncle, John Broadwood (1798–1864), she reissued his collection of folksongs, Old English Songs (1843) with H.F. Birch Reynardson as Sussex Songs (1890). She also travelled with Baring-Gould to Cornwall, to collect folksongs, and collaborated with J.A. Fuller Maitland to publish English County Songs (1893), thus establishing herself as a key figure in the folksong revival.

Her arrival in London (1894) precipitated a greater involvement with musical life, especially early music for which her voice was well suited. She also flourished as an amateur singer in charitable concerts. She continued her work on folksong, both arranging songs for performance by singers such as Plunket Greene, and composing some of her own in a similar style, with encouragement from Liza Lehmann and Arthur Somervell. In ...

(Adams )

(b New York, May 30, 1842; d New York City, Feb 15, 1918). American collector of musical instruments. Brown was formally schooled until age 16 and married the banker John Crosby Brown in 1864. Family (including six children), church, and charitable work were foremost in her life, but from 1884 her interest in music motivated her to form a systematic, global collection of instruments meant to illustrate their development and diversity. Beginning in 1889, she donated more than 3000 instruments to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, naming the gift in honour of her husband: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations. The collection, of which she was de facto curator, attracted international recognition and remains the core of the museum’s instrument holdings, which also include her correspondence and a collection of musicians’ portraits.

Brown acquired instruments (including replicas to fill gaps in the didactic sequence) largely through correspondence with far-flung family, friends, missionaries, consular officials, and her husband’s international business connections. Although the collection includes some important masterpieces of art and design, Brown strove to collect typical examples illustrative of their times and places. For advice she corresponded with Alfred J. Hipkins, George Grove, Henry Balfour, Victor-Charles Mahillon, Sourindro Mohun Tagore, and other authorities, and she exchanged information and instruments with other collectors and museums in the USA and Europe....

(b Armagh, Feb 1773; d Dublin, Dec 21, 1843). Irish folksong collector. He was the son of a Derby mining engineer who had settled near Dungannon and married Mary O’Quin; he studied music with his brother Anthony. In 1784 he was invited by William Ware to take over his duties as piano teacher and organist at St Anne’s, Belfast, in which town his other brother, John, was already established as a teacher and pianist. He became articled to Ware and soon rose to prominence in Belfast’s musical life; in 1806 he was appointed organist of the Second Presbyterian Church, Rosemary Street, and St George’s, High Street. He became the best-known Belfast piano teacher of his day and was the chief driving force behind the organization of such events as the visit of Catalani in 1809 and the Belfast Music Festival of 1813, in which he took a prominent part as a pianist, playing a Mozart concerto. He was a founder of the Belfast Harp Society (...

(b Iaşi, Oct 3, 1839; d Iaşi, Feb 17, 1923). Romanian writer on music, folklorist and violinist. He studied music in Iaşi (1855–60) and at the Paris Conservatoire with Reber, Clapisson and Alard (1861–5). At the Iaşi Conservatory he held posts as professor of violin (1860–61) and of music theory (1893–1903). He undertook concert tours in Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia, Italy, Asia Minor and elsewhere, and collected folklore material of various peoples, particularly of the Romanians in Moldavia, Dobruja and Transylvania. The published results concerned wedding and burial customs (including remarkable studies on dirges), and Romanian folk music instruments. He was a founder of Romanian musicology, and published research on music education, the musical theatre, military songs and church choirs. He was also the founder of Romanian music lexicography: he edited the first Romanian dictionary of music (Dicţionar muzical...

(b Bassano del Grappa, nr Vicenza, July 12, 1848; d Bassano del Grappa, June 23, 1916). Italian writer on music. After graduating in law from the University of Padua (1871), he studied the cello, flute and guitar; he also became an outstanding performer on the lute, which led him to investigate the structure, tuning and repertory of that instrument.

Chilesotti owned a large collection of 16th- and 17th-century tablatures, both printed and manuscript, and was a pioneer in transcribing lute music. His methods were interpretative, in that he picked out the implied polyphony in the tablature and retained the single staff in transcription, using a treble clef. In order for the music to be performed on the guitar he employed a false tuning in E rather than the original tuning in G or A. Many scholars were critical of these choices, finding the transcriptions too guitar-like. Chilesotti’s two principal publications, the ...

(b Naples, Sept 15, 1808; d Paris, March 19, 1866). French composer, curator and teacher. His paternal grandfather was a wind instrument maker at Lyons and his father a professional horn player who played principal horn at the Teatro S Carlo, Naples, and led the military band for Murat (King of Naples during the First Empire) in the early 19th century. As a result of political and military events at the end of the Empire, the Clapisson family returned to France and settled in about 1815 in Bordeaux, where the father was appointed principal horn at the Grand Théâtre and Louis began his musical studies, particularly of the violin. Soon he was making concert tours in the south of France. On returning to Bordeaux he studied harmony and became a first violin in the Grand Théâtre orchestra. He then went to Paris, entering the Conservatoire on 18 June 1830...

(b Copenhagen, May 1, 1855; d Frederiksberg, Feb 22, 1931). Danish textile manufacturer, diplomat, philanthropist, and instrument collector. He was the son of a theatre prop manager. In 1884, after some years as a school teacher and inspector, he moved to Malmö, where he opened a textile factory. While living in Sweden he helped establish the Swedish section of the International Musicological Society which he led until 1914. He returned to Copenhagen in 1906, but maintained his business in Sweden until his death. Previously he was instrumental in founding the Musikhistoriska Museet in Stockholm (1899). At the outbreak of World War I he was appointed Denmark’s consul in Peru, becoming consul-general in 1915. Active in charitable, mercantile, and museum circles, Claudius was chairman of the Sundby Asylum, co-founder of the Danish Music Society (1921), and in 1928 he became a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. His honours included Knight and 2nd degree Commander of the Dannebrog. Claudius collected coins, prints, liturgical manuscripts, autographs, bookplates, but especially musical instruments, which he acquired over about 30 years, amassing one of the largest private collections in Europe at the time. He and his wife hosted concerts played on historical instruments in their home. Claudius bequeathed his collection of music and musical instruments to the Danish state. In ...