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Arts Department, Special Collections

Allen A. Brown Collection of Music
Excerpt of shape-note notation [p. 92] from Musical Primer, 3rd edition, by Andrew Law (1811)

Allen A. Brown Collection of Music
Opening pages of an early copyist's manuscript of Johann Sebastian Bach's 
Italian Concerto, BWV 971 (ca. 1742) 

Allen A. Brown Collection of Music
Autograph score of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Fugue for String Trio, K. 404b (K. 443) (1782)

Overview

Music collections at Boston Public Library contain over 150,000 volumes related to every facet of musical study, including scores and parts, biography, history and criticism, theory and composition, and music education; collected editions of all major composers (and less well-known composers); and important music indexes, encyclopedias, and bibliographies. The collections include current periodicals, American and foreign music journals--including those devoted to musical instruments--standard recording reviews, and popular music magazines.

 

Special music collections include autograph scores from a wide variety of composers, first editions, early printed music (both European and North American), and rare monographs and periodicals. To complement its rich collections of published materials, there are ca. 75 special and archival collections related to music, composers, and performers with a specific focus on local Boston music making.

BPL Music Collections

Allen A. Brown Musical Library
The nucleus of the music holdings at Boston Public Library is the Allen A. Brown Musical Library, named for the donor who presented it to the Library in 1894. The collection contains many first editions, early American and European imprints, scrapbooks, and annotated scores. It continues to grow through purchases from trust funds--including the Allen A. Brown Fund--and presently contains more than 40,000 books, scores, and manuscripts relating to music and musical topics. 

Boston Public Library published a comprehensive 4-part catalog of Brown's original donation titled Catalogue of the Allen A. Brown Collection of Music in the Public Library of the City of Boston between 1910 and 1916. These volumes contain all items added to the Brown Collection between 1894 and 1916. Digitized versions can be accessed via the links below. Materials added to the Brown Collection after 1916 can be accessed via card catalogs and BPL's online catalog.

Allen A. Brown Collection of Music Catalog: Volume 1
Allen A. Brown Collection of Music Catalog: Volume 2
Allen A. Brown Collection of Music Catalog: Volume 3
Allen A. Brown Collection of Music Catalog: Volume 4 

Handel & Haydn Society Archives
Founded in 1815, Handel & Haydn Society is one of the oldest continually operating performing arts organizations in the United States. This archival collection includes scrapbooks, programs, business and legal records, musical anthologies, and journals. Printed items include books and scores (both manuscript and published) used by the Society, which include early imprints of Handel's music and autograph scores of commissioned musical compositions. 

Arthur Fiedler Collection
​​​​​​Scrapbooks, photographs, periodicals, catalogs, programs, correspondence, and memorabilia from 1898-1980 from Arthur Fiedler's personal library.

Grace Warner Gulesian Collection
Autograph scores spanning 1911-1967 by a Boston-area composer, pianist, and playwright.

Joseph Koudelka Collection
Comprised of rare musical works and treatises from the 15th to 18th centuries.

Serge Koussevitzky Collection
Serge Koussevitzky (1875-1951) was the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. The collection contains annotated scores marked by Koussevitzky, correspondence, concert programs, scrapbooks, and photographs.

B.J. Lang Scrapbooks
Contain concert programs and clippings from 1861-1906, which document his music career as pianist, organist, and conductor of the Apollo Club, Cecilia Society, and the Handel & Haydn Society.

Marchard Orchestra Collection
Contains 130 songbooks, over 1,500 musical scores and parts (published and manuscript) performed by the orchestra, publicity materials, reviews, and news clippings. 

Walter Piston Collection
Contains ca. 2,275 books, scores, antique musical instruments, and personal effects upon his death.

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917) Theatre Music Collection
Contains manuscripts and published scores of incidental music for over 60 plays produced by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, manager of London's Haymarket Theatre from 1887, and later of Her Majesty's Theatre from 1897 until 1916. Materials include full scores, orchestral parts, stage band music, typescripts, books, song lyrics, libretti, correspondence, and production-related items. Specific items include unpublished full scores by Mascagni (The Eternal City, 1902) and several autograph full scores by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, including four of his five known sets of incidental music, and six short pieces composed for Israel Zangwill's The God Of War.

Victor Young Collection
Contains 1400 items, primarily conductor’s scores, vocal/piano scores, lead sheets, and instrumental parts, used by film composer, arranger, and conductor Victor Young. Best known for his Academy Award winning score for Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Young also composed the music for more than 300 films, 2 Broadway shows, and numerous hit songs and commercials.

Philip Hale Photograph Collection
The Philip Hale Photograph Collection contains items owned and used by Boston music critic Philip Hale in his writings. The photographs, taken between 1953 and 1931, contain professional photos of composers, conductors, musicians, actors, dancers, vocalists, and other performers. 

Philip Hale Scrapbook Collection
The Philip Hale scrapbooks contain letters and programs, along with clippings with reviews and criticisms written by Hale and others, all compiled by Hale, of Boston musical life between 1877 and 1933. This scrapbook collection contains 60 volumes organized by year and two separate index volumes.

Sheet Music Lithograph Covers
This set of digital images includes lithographs of sheet music covers from 19th-century U.S. publishers from Boston Public Library's music special collections.

Searching BPL Music Resources

Boston Public Library began collecting music shortly after its founding in 1848; although access tools (for instance, card and online catalogs) have significantly evolved since 1848, multiple legacy resources still exist as the primary methods to search the music collections. Card catalogs were the main access tools for over a century; in 2022, cards have been supplemented with online catalogs and finding aids. Given the age and magnitude of BPL's music collections, the vast majority of music holdings are not available to search online.

 

To help navigate searching our music holdings, please use the following step-by-step guidelines

 

Step 1: Search Polaris, BPL's online catalog.

  • Collections and items that were added to our holdings before ca. 1980 may not be in Polaris.

Step 2: Search ArchivesSpace (previously Archon).

  • This tool will search finding aids for music archival collections; however, most archival collections have not yet been added to ArchivesSpace.

Step 3: Search RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales) for materials created before 1800.

Step 4: Consult print research tools available in-person at the Central Library in Copley Square.

  • Most music materials added to BPL before ca. 1980 are not available to search using online tools. For these items and collections, please consult the complete Research Library Catalog, which is available on microfiche at:

The Research Services desk in Bates Hall (2nd floor); and

The Information Desk in the Washington Room on the 2nd floor of the McKim Building.

Step 5: E-mail specialcollections@bpl.org for further information.

  • If you are unable to consult print research resources in-person, please e-mail specialcollections@bpl.org with your request. We would be happy to help you!
  • Some music archival collections are not available in the Research Library Catalog, the Dictionary Catalog, and ArchivesSpace. Please e-mail specialcollections@bpl.org for assistance with navigating these collections.

Viewing BPL Music Resources

Everyone is welcome to use our collections in our reading room. In order to best get our collections ready for your use, research appointments are required.
 

Step 1. To make a research appointment, log into or create a reading room account at readingroom.bpl.org, opens a new window and select “New Requests.”

Step 2. Within your Reading Room account, find the department that holds the material (Arts). If unsure, use any request form on the New Request page and staff will route your request to the correct department.

Step 3. Fill out the linked request form with as much information as you have. Skip any fields you don’t know or enter ‘unknown.’

Step 4. At the bottom of the request form, use the "New Appointment" button to schedule your visit.

Step 5. Look for confirmation that the item(s) you requested are available on the day you picked. Some material needs work from our staff to get them ready for use, which may cause a delay.