Scope and Content Note
The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation Collection includes music manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, business papers, programs, publicity materials, iconography, realia, and clippings. While most of the materials in the collection are available for research, this finding aid includes only the correspondence. Additional materials will be incorporated into this finding aid at a later date. The music manuscripts of works that were commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge or the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in the Library of Congress comprise a substantial portion of the collection and are cataloged individually.
The Correspondence from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation Collection spans the years 1894-1953, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1920 to 1953. This collection contains personal and professional correspondence to and from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge that documents both Coolidge's role as a patron of twentieth century music and the activities of her foundation which she established at the Library of Congress in 1925. The correspondents include many of the prominent composers, musicians, conductors, and other musical figures of the time. The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation was established in the Library for the promotion and advancement of chamber music through commissions, public concerts, and festivals. This collection provides insight into the creative process of many twentieth century composers, and other artists, who worked with Coolidge, and gives context to the circumstances surrounding Coolidge's commissions. These materials reveal the process of the foundation's commissioning work, from negotiation with artists, through creation and revision of the work, and ending with the finished piece, its performance and public reception. Artists represented in the correspondence include, Georges Barrère, Béla Bartók, E. Power Biggs, Ernest Bloch, Frank Bridge, John Alden Carpenter, Carlos Chávez, Aaron Copland, Henry Eichheim, Martha Graham, Roy Harris, Edward Burlingame Hill, Mary Howe, Frederick Jacobi, Rudolf Kolisch, William Kroll, Charles Martin Loeffler, Marian MacDowell, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Daniel Gregory Mason, Darius Milhaud, Alphonse Onnou, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Sergey Prokofiev, Ottorino Respighi, Wallingford Riegger, Feri Roth, Carlos Salzedo, Alexander Schneider, Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions, David Stanley Smith, Frederick Stock, Ernst Toch, and Willem Willeke. In addition, there is correspondence between Coolidge and various Library of Congress officials, including music division chiefs Carl Engel, Harold Spivacke, Oliver Strunk and Edward N. Waters, and Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam, concerning the creation and establishment of her foundation and the building of the Coolidge auditorium. There is extensive correspondence concerning various commissions, such as Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, in which Coolidge and the Library work out the many details that go into bringing a commission to fruition.
The collection also documents Coolidge's other forays into supporting and sponsoring chamber music outside of the Library of Congress. There are letters relating to her early work in creating the Berkshire String Quartet, inaugurating the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival and establishing the Berkshire Competition near her home in Pittsfield, Mass. Many items detail her commissioning compositions by eminent contemporary composers abroad and her sponsorship of numerous festivals in Europe, Honolulu, Mexico City and San Juan. Ugo Ara, who first urged Coolidge to extend her festival sponsorship beyond the United States, is well represented in the collection, as is Alfredo Casella, who helped to manage the festivals and get them off the ground. Coolidge also sponsored concerts for numerous special occasions, including the "Century of Progress" in Chicago, where the Pro Arte Quartet performed. There is a significant amount of correspondence between Coolidge and the individuals and groups with whom she worked on these events.