RE: Record Libraries

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Dear Robert,


Most of the music collections mentioned below are extraordinary collections are 
extraordinary resources for Jewish music.   I wish someone would write up a 
fuller description than just a line or two.   I must also say that it's a bit 
strange to see you give only one line to JTS's music collections.   Below are 
excerpts from a file I just happened to have posted about JTS's musical 
resources on YiddishNet, my Yiddish news and information mailing list.   You 
also left out info about the Lincoln Center Branch of the New York Public 
Library in NYC (much theater music).   The Donnell branch on E. 53 St., the 
Midtown Manhattan branch, and the Central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library 
have much smaller collections, but at least they circulate. 

Also a note on the Bob & Molly Freedman Collection, now at the U. of 
Pennsylvania.  It's distinctiveness lies is the fact that it is the largest 
collection of Yiddish musical recordings anywhere, including YIVO.   It just 
happens that it is _also_ "commercial", "popular American Jewish music" and 
includes "cantorial" music.   (They now have a web page for that on U. of Penn 
web site.)

There are of course also several other major collections in Israel.



Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky



-------------------------FORWARD-------------------------------------
 
      The Sabin Family Music Library 

      The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America has 
a steadily growing music collection which is housed in the Sabin 
Family Music Library. It contains manuscripts and printed materials 
as well as recordings of cantorial and general music of interest to 
music students. The Sabin Library offers opportunities for serious 
research as well as for music listening pleasure. The excellent audio
equipment, complete with earphones for private listening, is 
augmented by a library atmosphere conducive to the appreciation of 
the rare old material as well as the more current discs and tapes. 
Hours are posted in the Sabin Library. 
-----------------------------------------

Highlights Library's Music Collection

           A gala concert was held on February 25th to promote the 
Library's music collection. The concert, co-sponsored by the Friends 
of the Library and the Cantors' Assembly, celebrated the 90th 
anniversary of the founding of the Society for Jewish Folk Music in 
St. Petersburg. The program, presented to a full house in Feinberg 
Auditorium, featured music written by the founding members of the 
Society, including Ephraim Skliar, Solomon Rosowsky and Lazare Saminsky. 

           The Sabin Family Music Library houses a collection 
comprised of books on music, musical scores and sheet music, musical 
holographs, and more than 5,500 sound recordings. The goal of the 
Music Library is to support the curriculum taught at the H.L. Miller 
Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music and to make this 
collection a center for the study of cantorial music. 

           Through book endowments, the Library continues to purchase 
new materials both in print and sound formats. With the popularity of 
the compact disk, the Music Library has developed a fine collection 
of Jewish music CD's. The primary focus is on liturgical music but the 
collection also includes Jewish ethnic music, folk music, classical
music based on Jewish themes and Jewish popular music. With the 
revitalization of eastern European Jewish communities, the Library has 
been able to purchase recordings from communities in Budapest, Prague 
and cities of the former Soviet Union. 

           The Library has been fortunate to become the recipient of 
numerous collections and archives belonging to composers of Jewish 
music and cantors who both composed and collected Jewish liturgical 
music. These collections are being cataloged by a music archivist, 
Eliott Kahn. Catalogs are being prepared for each collection and, to 
date, the Library has published An Inventory of the Collection of 
Herbert Fromm and An Inventory of the Collection of Solomon Rosowsky. 
The inventory of Max Wohlberg's collection will be published later 
this year. 

           Music materials appear in the Library's online catalog. 
The Music Library, which is located on the second floor of the 
Library, is open during regular Library hours.  Assistance and 
listening facilities are available during Reference hours: Sunday 
11 am - 7 pm; Monday - Thursday 9 am - 7 pm and Fridays from 9 am 
until 1 hour before Library closing.

--------------------------------------------- 

JTS Library 

Music Collection

          The music collection contains books on Jewish music, a 
collection of over four thousand sound recordings (records, tapes 
and compact discs), an extensive collection of printed music, 
particularly Hazzanut (cantorial music), general music reference 
books, a large collection of Yiddish sheet music, a collection of 
cantorial music manuscripts, and music sheets in liturgical, folk, 
and art genres. 

          A Yamaha "Clavinova", an electronic piano / harpsichord / 
organ, is available for the convenience of users who wish to play 
music from our collection which does not circulate. 

Many of the recordings are housed in the Audio-Visual Center. 


----------------------------------------------------  

JTS Library
                  Collections: Audio-Visual Collection 


          Additional information is available in the Resources section 

          The Audio-Visual Center, on the second floor of the Library, 
houses materials found in non-print format. They include microforms, 
videos, sound recordings, and CD-ROM. 

          The Louis Ginzberg Microfilm Collection includes microfilms 
of outstanding Judaica manuscripts and rare books from other collections 
worldwide. Among the microfilms are the complete Hebrew manuscript 
collection of the British Museum, most of the Taylor-Schechter Geniza 
in the Cambridge University Library, a large portion of the Hebrew 
collections in the Bibliotheque Nationale and Alliance Israelite in 
Paris, the Vatican Library in Rome, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, 
the Kaufman Collection of the Hungarian Academy of Science in Budapest, 
the Hebrew collections of the Library in Parma, Italy, the Austrian 
National Library in Vienna and the Biblioteca Escorial in Madrid. 
Microfilms of over 2,000 JTS manuscripts are located here. 

          Among the other items in the microform collection are runs 
of numerous periodicals, microfilms of the Birnbaum Music Collection
housed at Hebrew Union College and a complete set of photographs on 
microfiche from Yad Vashem. There are microfilm and microfiche 
readers and a reader/printer available for use. 

          Videos in US (NTSC) and European (PAL and SECAM) formats 
are available for viewing at three carrels set up in the Center. 

          Sound recordings on long playing records, tapes and compact 
disks may be played here on listening equipment with headphones. The 
sound recording collection is primarily of Jewish Music but includes 
some 2,000 LP records of classical music. In addition there are 
instructional tapes, in Hebrew language, in Torah trope, etc. for
listening. 

          A CD-ROM (compact disk-Read Only Memory) network has been 
set up for searching databases. The AV Center (and Reference Desk) 
offer a a number of CD-ROM research titles. 

For more info or if you have questions, contact  library (at) jtsa(dot)edu(dot)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


 

----------
From:  Robert Wiener[SMTP:rwiener (at) fsmail(dot)pace(dot)edu]
Sent:  Thursday, October 22, 1998 4:53 AM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject:  Record Libraries

LIBRARIES WITH JEWISH SOUND RECORDINGS:
(with some strengths listed below)
There are a number of libraries which have extensive Jewish Music
Recordings:

YIVO in New York, (of course, attributed to be the world's largest
collection of East European Jewish sound recordings...)

JTS (Jewish Theological Seminary) in New York, (strength in cantorial)

School of Sacred Music of the Hebrew Union College (New York) & there
are extensive sound recordings at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati,
(strength in cantorial, choral, Reform)

Harvard University (attempts to be comprehensive in collecting --is
especially good on Israeli music recordings, according to Virginia
Danielson at MLA last Feb.)

University of Pennsylvania, Freedman Archive (commercial,cantorial,
popular American Jewish music)
http://www.library.upenn.edu/friends/freed/

Jewish Music Resource Centre, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Jewish and
non-Jewish communities in Israel)
http://shum.cc.huji.ac.il/~jmrc/pubs.htm

Gratz College in Philadelphia (lots of 78s! European and American
Jewish)
http://www.gratzcollege.edu/collegeindex.html

Indiana: See Tischler Collection at Indiana (scores, Israeli)
http://www.music.indiana.edu/collections/tischler.html

Judy,

Thanks for that great list.  I've been to several of them (JTS, HUC NY,
HUC Cincinnati, Gratz).  As I recall, HUC Cincinnati was the most
impressive to me for comprehensiveness and organization.  I spent
several hours looking through its collection for research as to and
didn't get 1/3 of the way through.  And that was without looking at the
78s!

In your opinion, which of the others is worth going out of one's way
for?  Which are looking for contributions of recordings?

One library not on your list is that at the Elaine Kaufman Cultural
Center Abraham Goodman House 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-501-3360 Fax: 212-874-7865.  I remember being particularly
impressed by its non-commercial broadcast tapes of Israeli classical
music from Kol Israel.  Does it still exist?

I'd also be interested in which of our list members have private
collections with concentrations on particular themes.  I think that I
heard of a New Jerseyan with a wonderful cantorial collection and a
Philadelphian with an extensive general Jewish collection for which he
had created a database (that I believe was on file at the Goodman
house0.

Eventually, perhaps we could share suggestions as to cataloguing
(creating and importing computer databases), transliterating or Hebrew
computer programs, sources...  Are there any print or internet resources
with such information?  (Thanks Judy for your wonderful site.)  I could
go on and on, but I guess that I already have.

Bob Wiener