Scope and Content Note
He was neither a painter, nor a dancer, nor had extensive musical training, yet by means of his great organizational and managerial skills, as well as by a keen aesthetic sense and an unerring sense of style, Serge Diaghilev had a profound influence on the course of music, ballet and art in the twentieth century.
Diaghilev's musical interests spanned a wide range of styles, as reflected by the variety of musical material contained in this collection. A large part of this material represents musical works considered by Diaghilev for choreographic purposes and eventual production by the Ballet Russe; much of this material consequently bears annotations and performance indications.
This collection is comprised in large part of printed music, most of which emanated from the personal music library of Serge Diaghilev. This library was acquired by Lifar, a premier dancer with the Ballet Russe and a protégé of Diaghilev, who was present at the latter's deathbed. In his auto-biography, Ma Vie, Lifar recalls how Diaghilev had died without leaving a will, and that he was prompted to break into Diaghilev's Venice apartment and to smuggle out material from his library in order to prevent its dispersal.
The collection is particularly rich in the material of eighteenth-century Italian composers such as Paisiello, Pergolesi, and Cimarosa; nineteenth-century Russians such as Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Dargomyzhsky and Liadov, as well as by several important collections of Russian folk song, all appearing in rare pre-Revolutionary editions; and nineteenth century French composers such as Chabrier, Gounod, Delibes and Godard. Also included are a significant number of popular works from the early Soviet period; several works for jazz band as well as popular songs from the early years of this century; heavily annotated chorus part books apparently used in the productions of Stravinsky's Les Noces, Rimsky-Korsakov's Snegurochka, and Musorgsky's Khovanshchina; and annotated performing scores of operas of Gounod (particularly La colombe, Philémon et Baucis, and Le médecin malgré lui) and Cimarosa for which Diaghilev commissioned new editions and/or additional musical material by composers such as Respighi, Satie, Milhaud and Auric. Particularly notable holograph material is represented in the collection by scores such as Respighi's recitatives for Cimarosa's Le astuzie femminili; Prokofiev's annotations to the printed score of his ballet Le pas d'acier; and one leaf of Stravinsky's arrangement for pianola of the "Berceuse" section from The Firebird. Among the non-musical material in the collection, particularly notable are three letters of Sergei Prokofiev to Diaghilev; rare editions of books on music, literature and theater; and Diaghilev's personal notebook, used from 1926 until his death in 1929, containing entries in French, Russian and English regarding planned productions, future projects, addresses, etc., made by Diaghilev, Lifar and Boris Kochno.
Russian transliterations follow the standard Library of Congress system wherever possible. Modifications, however, were incorporated due to the inaccessibility of certain computer-generated symbols, hence the use of the symbol "ĭ" for the Russian short "i" (i kratkoe) and the omission of ligatures over groupings of letters, such as those used to indicate Russian soft vowels.
In addition to printed music, the collection contains music manuscripts, correspondence, libretti and synopses, books and monographs, magazines, and Diaghilev's personal notebook, which the impresario used from 1926 until his death in 1929.
Three items purchased during the same auction are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
The approximate dates of the items in this collection range from about 1750, represented by several manuscripts, to about 1950, the date of several ballet scores added to the collection by Lifar. The majority of the material in the collection, however, dates from 1890 to 1929.
Kevin LaVine, June 1994