Scope and Content Note
The Hugo Leichtentritt Papers consist of music manuscripts, correspondence, clippings, programs, scrapbooks, and writings on music history, criticism, and theory. The collection spans the period 1888 to 1972, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1890 to the 1933.
Leichtentritt's personal compositions include songs, and works for solo piano, organ, small instrumental combinations, and orchestra. These are chiefly represented by manuscript scores, parts, and sketches. Leichtentritt's dramatic works are often regarded as his most significant original compositions: Esther (1923-1926), Cantata, op. 27: Ich bin eine Blume zu Saron (1930), and his comedic opera, Der Sizilianer (1915-1918). A handwritten thematic index, located in box 21, provides details about the history of many of his compositions. Leichtentritt frequently reconstructed or arranged the compositions of other composers to illustrate concepts for teaching. These are respresented in the subseries of "Music by Other Composers" alongside scores and parts by various composers, including Bach, Haydn, Handel, and Monteverdi. Lichtentritt's settings of texts by the German poets Richard Dehmel and Friedrich Hölderlin are extensively represented.
The collection also contains seven scrapbooks that date from 1888 to 1933. These span Leichtentritt's early career, from his years as an undergraduate at Harvard University, through his employment at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, to his later hiring by Harvard in 1933. The albums chiefly contain articles, clippings, correspondence, programs, and promotional material in German and English about various musical performances and composers.
Leichtentritt's writings consist of manuscript and typescript drafts of articles, essays, critical commentary, and analyses. Most notable are the materials for his book Music of the Western Nations, which was published posthumously by Nicolas Slonimsky in 1956. Although the final version contained twelve chapters, there are fourteen present in his draft, including a foreword, introduction, and index. Equally intriguing is Leichtentritt's unfinished autobiography that chronicles his military life in Germany during World War I, his travels throughout Europe, and his seven-year tenure as a lecturer at Harvard University. The collection also contains a draft of his 1901 dissertation, Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern, which he submitted for his Doctorate of Philosophy degree from Berlin University. Other writings include a work on the history of motet music and analyses of compositions by Chopin, Copland, Handel, and Monteverdi.