“A foundation dedicated to Sergei Prokofiev will give a priceless trove of musical manuscripts, letters and other items belonging to the composer—including a suitcase—to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia [University] in an effort to make them more accessible to scholars,” writes Allan Kozinn in Wednesday’s (10/16) New York Times. “Simon Morrison, a musicologist and professor of music history at Princeton University and the foundation’s president, said the materials are held by Goldsmiths College at the University of London and by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the National Library of France, in Paris. The transfer will begin on Nov. 1.” Among the works are “Semero Ikh” (“Seven, They Are Seven”), a 1918 work that “calls for a large chorus and an orchestra of over 100, but lasts only about eight minutes. The Paris materials, which Michael T. Ryan, the director of Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library described as ‘the mother lode,’ will come to New York in 2014. Included are … the First, Third and Fourth Symphonies; the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos…. The materials are owned by the Serge Prokofiev Foundation—an organization that was started by the composer’s widow, Lina Prokofiev, in 1983.”
Posted October 17, 2013
