Scope and Content Note
The papers of Claudio Spies (1925-2020) span the years 1923-2012, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1957-1998. The papers are arranged in two series: Music and Subject Files. The Music series contains approximately 104 compositions, with approximately ninety-five by Spies and nine by Stravinsky. The majority of Spies’ works are manuscript scores, while Stravinsky's consist primarily of photocopies with Spies’ annotations. Most scores are dated, with the majority falling between 1947 and 1979. Spies' pieces include his first twelve-tone work Five Psalms; his self-proclaimed most complex vocal score, Seven Sonnets, housed in thirteen folders; Bagatelle for Piano, housed in ten folders; Ave Atque Vale, in eight folders; and Due Epigrammi ed Una Iscrizione, which incorporates a poem by the Renaissance master Michelangelo. Roughly a third of Spies’ compositions include orchestral parts. Stravinsky’s scores include the dance cantata Les Noces and two orchestrations inspired by Roman Catholicism: Mass and Requiem Canticles.
The Subject Files primarily comprise correspondence, musical notation, song text, transcribed interviews, and program notes. Large segments of these files pertain to Robert Craft and to a keynote speech that Spies gave in the German city of Saarbrücken. Craft, whose friendship with Spies spanned several decades, is renowned for his intimate working relationship with Igor Stravinsky. The keynote address that Spies delivered in Germany was commissioned by the Saarland University of Music for a 1994 Schoenberg conference, and was transcribed for the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute.
These files also include materials relating to Erich Alban Berg, the nephew of Austrian composer Alban Berg, and Stephen Peles, who interviewed Spies for a Perspectives of New Music article, “A Conversation with Claudio Spies.” The amount of Stravinsky correspondence is relatively small.