Special Collections

In February 2006, a priceless collection of autograph and working manuscripts, sketches, engraver’s proofs, and other musical treasures was given to The Juilliard School by its chairman, Bruce Kovner, who became chair emeritus as of 2022. Called the Juilliard Manuscript Collection, it comprises 140 items, including several headline-making manuscripts, sketchbooks, and printed editions with extensive composer markings. Among its holdings are the final working manuscript of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony prepared for the printer, with extensive revisions, corrections, and alterations by the composer; the autograph manuscript of the final scene of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; and an extensively worked autograph manuscript of the last 50 or so bars of the first movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

A state-of-the-art website, created in spring 2007, contains high quality digital images of most of the manuscripts in the collection. By logging onto www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org the user can examine the tiniest details of the scores, thanks to the site’s use of “Zoomify” technology.

Juilliard houses hundreds of individual manuscript scores and autograph letters. The highlights of this collection are two songs by Johannes Brahms: "Sehnsucht," op. 49, no. 3, and "Im Garten am Seegestade," op. 70, no. 1.

Flutist Julius Baker (1915-2003), principal flutist of the New York Philharmonic from 1965 to 1983 and a member of Juilliard’s faculty from 1954 until his death, donated his collection of 1,900 published scores and 275 manuscript scores to Juilliard in 1999.

Flutist Samuel Baron (1925-1997) was the founding member of the New York Woodwind Quintet, and a member of Juilliard’s faculty from 1975 until his death. His collection of flute music and woodwind quintet scores (totaling nearly 2,000 items) was donated by his widow Carol Baron in 2000.

Violinist and pedagogue Dorothy DeLay (1917-2002) taught such renowned violinists as Itzhak Perlman, Cho-Liang Lin, Nadia Salerno Sonnenberg, Shlomo Mintz, Nigel Kennedy, Robert McDuffie, Sarah Chang, Mark Kaplan, Rachel Lee, Midori, and Gil Shaham. She was a member of Juilliard’s faculty from 1948 until her death. Her papers document her own performing and teacher career as well as the careers of many of her students.

Violinist Joseph Fuchs (1899-1997) enrolled as a student at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard’s predecessor institution) in 1906. His renowned career included solo recitals and appearances with orchestras around the globe. He taught at Juilliard from 1946 until his death. His collection includes correspondence, concert programs, and clippings, as well as his personal collection of scores with his annotations and markings.

Juilliard received personal papers, scores, and recordings from the estate of Robert Fizdale (1920-1995) in 1996. With his partner Arthur Gold (1917-1990), Fizdale helped transform the duo-piano repertory by commissioning and performing many new works. Fizdale and Gold met during their student years at Juilliard.

Juilliard received the Kneisel Hall Archives in 2001. The collection documents the history of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine since its founding by Franz Kneisel in 1885. Kneisel taught at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard's predecessor institution) from its founding in 1905 until his death in 1926.

Juilliard received the papers of music critic Ernest Newman (1868-1959) in 1977. The collection includes correspondence and handwritten notebooks for his books on Liszt, Wagner, and many other subjects. Also included and preserved on microfilm is a full set of clippings of Newman's criticism for various British newspapers from 1905-1959.

Organist Leonard Raver (1927-1992) was a strong supporter of contemporary composers and a member of Juilliard's faculty from 1975 to 1990. His collection includes correspondence, concert programs, photographs, and more than 500 unpublished scores. Among the scores are many works that he commissioned and premiered throughout his career.

The family of pianist Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982) donated an extensive collection of original manuscripts, manuscript copies, and published editions that had been seized from the pianist's Paris home by the Nazis, and returned to his children by the German government in May 2006. The collection includes manuscript scores of Villa-Lobos's Rudepoêma, George Antheil's Vals Profane, and several works by Germaine Tailleferre.

Juilliard’s library houses Gerard Schwarz’s collection of trumpet and brass ensemble music. Schwarz studied with William Vacchiano at Juilliard.

Soulima Stravinsky (1910-1994), the son of Igor Stravinsky, was a noted composer, pianist, and teacher, as well as an important interpreter of his father's works. The collection contains original manuscript scores and sketches of Soulima Stravinsky's own compositions, as well as hundreds of published scores and books from his personal library. Among these is a large collection of Igor Stravinsky's published scores, many of which contain the composer's own annotations and markings.

Juilliard received the collection of violinist Tossy Spivakovsky (1907-1998) in 1998. The collection comprises correspondence, programs, photographs, and more than 2,000 music scores. Included among the scores are several hundred manuscripts and manuscript copies of works that were performed by or written for Spivakovsky, who was a member of Juilliard's faculty from 1974 to 1989.

Liszt scholar and bibliographer Charles Suttoni documented the composer’s published correspondence by compiling lists of sources in which Liszt letters may be found. His work thus provides a “road map” for others interested in locating particular letters in published sources. In 2003 he donated his archive of materials to Juilliard, including books, off-prints of articles, and selected monographic sources on the composer.

Juilliard houses mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel's scores and personal papers, including correspondence, programs, news clippings, publicity materials, scrapbooks, and photographs documenting her performing and teaching career from about 1946 through 1975.

The David Walter Collection consists of 2,500 scores and 200 books donated to the Juilliard Library by David Walter (1913-2003), a Juilliard faculty member from 1969 to 2002. The bulk of the score collection consists of published chamber music and instructional material for double bass, as well as transcriptions and arrangements by David Walter in manuscript and computer printout. The collection also includes unpublished works for double bass given to Mr. Walter by contemporary composers; correspondence and photographs, and a small number of concert programs.

Juilliard houses a significant collection of manuscripts by the Belgian violinist-composer Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931). Among the holdings are the autograph manuscripts of three of his six solo violin sonatas (nos. 2, 3, and 6).

Donated to Juilliard in 1914, the Ruth Dana Collection includes almost 200 first and early editions of Franz Liszt’s original piano works, transcriptions, and arrangements. Images of the scores (in PDF format) are linked to bibliographic records in JUILCAT, under Ruth Dana Collection of Liszt Editions Nnju. To access the PDF documents, click on a title, then on the link for "online version" in the middle of the page.