Russian Visual Arts Resources in the Library of Congress's Music Division

Abstract

This article highlights some of the Russian visual works held within the Library of Congress's Music Division. Discussed specifically are original works of art in the Division's general collections, including music material acquired from imperial Russian libraries, as well as holdings of its archival collections, primarily those of artists associated with the Ballets Russes and of Russian émigré musicians.

Keywords:

• Music
• opera
• theater
• theatre
• Ballets Russes
• Houston Maples
• Russian Orthodox Church hymnals
• Russian imperial family
• musical scores
• music books
• Library of Congress
• photographs

While the collections of the Library of Congress's Music Division might not immediately spring to mind as a resource for material related to the visual arts, and especially those of Slavic and Eastern European cultures, the Division's collections nevertheless offer a small but significant body of diverse resources for research in this area. Foremost among such visual material held by the Music Division is a substantial collection of photographs dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, held within a number of archival collections of Russian émigré musicians (i.e., composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, conductor Serge Koussevitzky, violinist Jascha Heifetz, and others). The Music Division also serves as the repository for archival collections of individuals in the areas of theater and dance. Descriptions of and/or finding aids for the Music Division's various archival collections are on the Web page of the Division's public access area, the Performing Arts Reading Room, http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform. Inquiries about this material may also be directed to the division via the Ask a Librarian link that appears on the same Web page.

Several of the Division's archival collections in dance, and primarily those related to the history of the renowned Ballets Russes, are particularly rich in Russian visual material. Established by impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929) in 1909, the Ballets Russes involved a remarkable assemblage of Russian and Western European dancers, choreographers, composers, scenic artists, and costume designers, whose collective efforts had a tremendous impact in disseminating Russian artistic culture throughout the world. The richest of these archival collections is that of dancer and choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, which, in addition to a large number of photographs, contains costume, set, and curtain designs by artists such as Natalia Goncharova, Michel Larionov, Alexandre Benois, Juan Gris, Alexandra Exter, and Georges Braque. Other photographs are held in the archival collections of dancers Alexandra Danilova and Serge Grigoriev, as well as of Serge Diaghilev himself (in the Serge Diaghilev/Serge Lifar Collection). Additional dance-related material includes original costume designs by painter Léon Bakst for Diaghilev's production of The Sleeping Princess (1921), which is currently housed for the Music Division in the Library's Prints and Photographs Division. The Music Division also holds a large ink line drawing by Natalia Goncharova of composer Sergei Prokofiev, which evidently dates from these artists' collaboration on Prokofiev's ballet Le Fils prodigue [The Prodigal son] (1929), the last work to be produced by the Ballets Russes under Diaghilev's supervision.

Complementing the dance collections mentioned above is the Houston Maples Collection, a recent acquisition by the Division. Comprised of photographs, books, videotaped performances, and programs relating to opera and theater performances in Moscow during the 1940s, including those at its famed Bol'shoi Teatr,' this collection is a rare resource outside Russia's borders for material dating from this era.

The Division's general collections include numerous pre-revolutionary Russian imprints, including a published volume containing five opera libretti written by Empress Ekaterina II (Catherine the Great), dated between 1786 and 1787, and on which are based some of the first operas produced in the Russian language. The book includes a few small hand-colored engravings, one of which depicts cherubs frolicking among green- and yellow-tinted clouds. The Division also holds the published full score, dated 1791, of one of these operas, Vasilii Alekseevich Pashkevich's Nachal'noe upravlenie Olega [The early reign of Oleg], to which the Italian composers Carlo Cannobio and Giuseppe Sarti, then working in St. Petersburg under imperial patronage, also contributed, and which includes a small number of striking engravings (see Figure 1). Also within the Music Division's collections are a handful of manuscript Russian Orthodox Church hymnals, all of which contain elaborately illuminated title pages and exhibit the traditional musical notation—known in Russian as znamia or kriuki, and occasionally in English as “znamennyi chant”—commonly used in such hymnals between the mid-fifteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries (see Figure 2).

FIGURE 1 Engraving in the full score of Vasilii Alekseevich Pashkevich's Nachal'noe upravlenie Olega [The early reign of Oleg], [St. Petersburg], 1791; Library of Congress call number: M1510. S27N2 Case.

FIGURE 2 Manuscript, Russian Orthodox hymnal Kniga glagolemaia irmosy [Russian Orthodox hymnal], ca. 1825; Library of Congress call number: M2156 XIX .M18 Case.

Perhaps the most significant body of visually interesting material within the Music Division's general collections is, however, the approximately one hundred forty musical scores and books on musical subjects that were formerly held in the Russian imperial family's personal libraries in and near St. Petersburg. This material represents the music-related works from among the nearly 2,800 volumes, collectively referred to as the Russian Imperial Collection, purchased by the Library in the 1930s from Russian-born book dealer Israel Perlstein (1897–1975). The acquisition of this material by the library coincided with the particular moment in history when the recently formed Soviet government was liquidating Tsarist property—the same moment when, as luck would have it, then-Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam was expending significant resources towards shaping the library into a world-class research institution. Putnam's recognition of the value of this material, and his immediate efforts to acquire it, secured for the library at a stroke a unique and substantial addition to its remarkable collections of Russian material, today regarded as the largest such collection beyond Russia itself.

The Library's Russian Imperial Collection is comprised of a diverse range of subjects, including Russian history, military and naval history, law, religion, geography, Russian and foreign (largely French) literature, and children's books. The collection's music component, primarily held within the collections of the Library's Music Division—with a handful of titles held in the Library's Rare Book and Special Collections Division—is of a broad and varied nature, ranging from small-scale works of chamber music to full scores of operas, as well as encompassing volumes devoted to folk song, liturgical music, and military music.

Most of the Russian Imperial Collection's music-related material consists of elegantly bound presentation copies that have been lavishly decorated in velvet and satin, gold and silver tooling, and occasionally small metallic crowns or stylized initials rendered in bas-relief and affixed to the volume's covers. Several of these scores also include original artwork in watercolor or as pencil drawings (see Figure 3). This material also commonly includes dedications, in highly formal prose, to a member or members of the imperial family. The degree of skill and invention applied to the creation of these volumes, where influences ranging from traditional Russian motifs to that era's emerging Art Nouveau style are easily discerned, can also be appreciated as a reflection of the development of Russian decorative arts in the late nineteenth century.

FIGURE 3 Pencil sketch of Empress Alexandra and her infant daughter, the Grand Duchess Olga, on the cover of Arkadii A. Poluboiarinov's manuscript score of his Kolybel'naia piesnia [Cradle song], for voice and piano, dated 1896; Library of Congress call number: M1621.P Case (Folio).

In the current absence of comprehensive holdings records for the original imperial libraries, it is impossible to determine with any accuracy the extent of their contents during the reigns of their owners. Consequently, the degree to which the imperial libraries' integrity has been maintained in comparison with the Library of Congress's Russian Imperial Collection is unknown. We do know, however, that volumes from the original imperial libraries were also acquired by other various American libraries such as Harvard University, the New York Public Library, and Stanford University. Other scores and volumes by more significant Russian composers and authors, who also dedicated works to the imperial family, have undoubtedly remained in Russia, perhaps out of respect for its cultural patrimony. Nevertheless, the breadth of subject matter represented within the Library's Russian Imperial Collection as a whole would appear to lend support to the idea that the collection has retained at least some degree of integrity from its source libraries. Assembled over the course of three generations by members of the imperial family, the musical scores and music-related books retained within the Library's Russian Imperial Collection may, through the sheer diversity of their content, likely reflect the varied musical interests and tastes of the last Tsars of Russia.

Lastly, it should be noted that a wealth of Russian and Eastern European visual arts resources are represented within the Music Division's unparalleled collection of musical scores, opera libretti, music-related books, and other publications. Often overlooked as visual sources, this material, and especially that predating the twentieth century, frequently includes high-quality engravings, lithographs, photographs, and other illustrative material such as covers, frontispieces and/or inserted plates. As a result of the Library's active efforts to acquire material in all formats and subject areas, including material published beyond America's borders, the Russian musical editions held within its collections serve as valuable resources for research in both musical and visual arts.

The author wishes to acknowledge the generous contributions to this article offered by Elizabeth Aldrich (Curator of Dance, Music Division, The Library of Congress), as well as by Harold Leich (Russian Area Specialist, European Division, The Library of Congress), whose article “The Czar's Library,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 43, no. 1–4 (2009): 387–418, documents the history of the library's acquisition of the Russian Imperial Collection.

Notes

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