Archive Item of the Month – April 2021
Igor Stravinsky (Oranienbaum, 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – New York, 6 April 1971), composer
Typed letter from the flautist and dulcimer player John Herbert Leach (1931-2014, Member 00815) to the composer Igor Stravinsky regarding an arrangement of Polka, the third of his Trois pièces faciles; annotated by the composer and returned to Leach, dated 22 December 1964.
Archive Item of the Month – March 2021
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (1786-1826)
Pencil drawing of Weber by an anonymous artist; [1826]. Presented to the RSM in 1908.
Read More»Archive Item of the Month – February 2021
Giuseppe Verdi (Roncole, 9 October 1813 – Milan, 27 January 1901)
On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the death of the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, a brief search in the RSM Archive revealed only two items: the first probably having little to rouse the reader’s excitement and the second of considerable curiosity from the perspective of the history of autograph and manuscript collecting.
Read More»Archive Item of the Month – January 2021
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Haydn left Vienna on 1 December 1790 for a visit to London in the company of violinist Johann Peter Salomon (1734-1815, Member A069). They arrived in Dover on the afternoon of 1 January 1791. On arriving in London, Haydn was a guest of the music publisher John Bland in his home above the shop at No.45 Holborn. Bland appears to have commissioned a portrait of the composer from Thomas Hardy (1756/7-1804), an artist who painted several portraits of musical figures; his portraits of Madame Mara, Madame Gautherot, Madame Krumpholz and Samuel Arnold, alongside the Haydn portrait, were exhibited at the Royal Academy in May 1792. Many of these were also engraved by the artist and the prints were sold at Bland’s music shop; the engraving of the Haydn portrait was first advertised for sale on 13 February 1792.
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