Search Results

1. Tams-Witmark (Original Library of Congress collection), 1701-1915

   approximately 7,000 items. 830 containers. 164 linear feet. -- Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

   Summary:

   The Tams-Witmark Music Library was established in 1925 through the merger of the Arthur W. Tams Music Library and the rental library of M. Witmark & Sons. The Tams-Witmark (Original Library of Congress Collection) contains music (manuscript and printed scores) that was being performed in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The scope of the collection ranges from eighteenth-century operas of Handel and Glück to a musical by George M. Cohan. The bulk of the materials are nineteenth-century English, French, German and Italian operas and operettas, the majority in full score, with some instrumental parts. Most of the scores have been annotated with cuts and performance markings, and some feature reduced or non-standard orchestrations. The collection also contains a small amount of concert music, including secular and sacred choral works, patriotic music, symphonic scores, and incidental music.

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   Some or all content stored offsite.

2. Correspondence of Elizabeth Mitchell Stephenson Fite and the American National Opera Company, 1864-1951

   approximately 125 items. 1 container. .5 linear feet. -- Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

   Summary:

   This collection documents the efforts of Elizabeth Mitchell Stephenson Fite to establish the American National Opera Company, a performing organization that endeavored to present operas in English, but did not realize that vision." Reflected in the materials is the involvement or opinions of noteworthy musicians such as George Whitfield Chadwick, Reginald De Koven, Arthur Foote, Victor Herbert, and others. It also contains correspondence addressed to other individuals, possibly related to Fite’s work at The Circle and Success magazine, published in New York in the first decade of the twentieth century. Also included is correspondence and documents believed to be related to Fite’s family members as well as a small number of photographs, clippings, and autographs.