Oliver Daniel was an American arts administrator, musicologist, radio director and producer, and composer. The collection includes correspondence, manuscript and printed scores, photographs, programs, clippings, scrapbooks and periodicals.

The collection comprises practically all the composer's works, mainly holograph manuscript scores in all major categories of composition. It also includes documents, correspondence (to and from Leonard Bernstein, Carlos Chávez, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Vivian Fine, Alberto Ginastera, Paul Kletzki, Nicolai Malko, Eugene Ormandy, Arthur Rubinstein, Nicolas Slonimsky, Leopold Stokowski, and others), writings, programs, and scrapbooks.

Irving Fine was an American conductor, teacher, and composer whose works assimilated neoclassical, romantic, and serial elements. The bulk of the materials in the collection are musical scores and sketches which represent nearly his entire musical output. In addition, there are photographs, clippings, programs, and scrapbooks, as well as correspondence from twentieth-century musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Alberto Ginastera, Ned Rorem, and William Schuman.

Lukas Foss was an American composer, conductor, pianist, and educator. The collection, which documents his life and career, consists of music holograph manuscript scores and parts, sketches, correspondence, business papers, programs, clippings, promotional materials, contracts, and financial documents.

Louis Kaufman was an American violinist. His wife, Annette Leibole Kaufman, was a pianist who served as his accompanist for over fifty years. The collection contains materials related to their personal lives and professional careers, including correspondence with many notable musical and artistic figures of the 20th century, concert programs, photographs, scrapbooks, subject files, and other miscellaneous materials.

The collection includes music, manuscript and printed, of Lopatnikoff, as well as of other composers; correspondence and personal papers; photographs, clippings, and programs; writings by and about Lopatnikoff; and offical documents. A significant amount of material is related to Lopatnikoff's opera Danton. Among the correspondents are Rudolf Bing, Aaron Copland, Serge Koussevitzky, Joseph Rosenstock, Julius Rudel, Nicolas Slonimsky, and William Steinberg.

Correspondence, manuscripts of writings, clippings and other printed material, memorabilia, and other papers relating primarily to Marian MacDowell's activities with the MacDowell Colony, the artist colony in Peterborough, N.H., established to honor her husband, Edward MacDowell.

The Arnold T. Schwab Collection on Marian Nevins MacDowell is an archive of materials related to the life and work of Marian Nevins MacDowell, founder of the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, named for her late husband, composer Edward MacDowell (1860-1908). The writings, correspondence, iconography, scrapbooks, index cards, and other papers reflect collector and donor Arnold T. Schwab's interest in and research on the MacDowell legacy.

Harold Spivacke was a music librarian, administrator, musicologist, and musician. He was chief of the Library of Congress Music Division for thirty-five years, from 1937 until 1972. The collection contains materials relating to his life and career, including correspondence, student notebooks, speeches, his dissertation, photographs, clippings, programs, manuscript and printed music, artwork, awards and honorary degrees, and business papers.

Louise Talma was an American composer, pianist, and teacher. She was a student of Nadia Boulanger and a long-time resident of Fontainebleau and the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The collection consists of music manuscripts, harmony and teaching materials, correspondence, photographs, business papers, clippings, programs, publicity materials, writings, awards and other materials related to her career and her family's history.