The Hodges Family Collection contains manuscript and printed music, writings, and other materials compiled and collected by Edward Hodges (1792-1867) and subsequently by his son, John Sebastian Bach Hodges (1830-1915). Soon after the collection arrived at the Library of Congress Music Division, approximately two-thirds of the bound volumes of the collection were cataloged and dispersed both throughout the Division and to other collections of the Library. No attempt to reconstruct the original contents of the collection has been made; the present finding aid serves as a guide primarily to the one-third of the original gift that has remained uncataloged. The only catalogued items included here are music manuscripts and writings of Edward Hodges himself and the 16 bound volumes M1.H7 (described below), as well as various other appropriate materials that had received only minimal cataloging. These items have been reunited with the uncataloged items in the Hodges collection in order to facilitate their access.

Noteworthy among the Edward Hodges' writings are the Annuary -- his attempt in later life to depict his earlier life -- and documents relating to the design and construction of the 1846 Erben organ at Trinity Church. The music scores and sketches of the collection may well be the largest extant source of Hodges' manuscript music, including both original music and transcriptions and arrangements of the works of others, mostly intended for performance in the context of a religious service. Among the numerous printed scores are two copies of Edward Hodges' Trinity collection of church music (1864), a compilation of music performed at Trinity Church.

Manuscript and printed scores of the music of two of Edward Hodges' children are also found in this collection. Faustina Hasse Hodges (1823-1895), Edward's only daughter, was an organist and church-music composer like her father. However, it was with her secular compositions, both songs and piano pieces, that she reached a degree of success. Her brother, John Sebastian Bach Hodges (1830-1915) was also a composer and organist, as well as being an ordained Episcopal priest. As rector of St. Paul's Church in Baltimore he enabled his church's choir to become the standard against which such choral organizations were measured for many years.

Sacred music in the collection that was not composed by Hodges family members provides insight into the kind of music that was typically performed in Episcopal churches in this country during the 19th- and early 20th- centuries: chants, psalm and hymn tunes, litanies, introits, offertories, oratorios, and the like. Especially interesting are the Breitkopf & Härtel publications of Haydn's Die Worte des Erlösers am Kreuze from 1801 and an early publication of Beethoven's Christus am Oldberge .

Among the scores of secular music, John Stafford Smith's Musica Antiqua (London, 1812), an anthology of music from the 13th through the 18th centuries, is particularly noteworthy, as is Chant lyrique, pour l'inauguration de la statue votée à sa majesté l'empereur et roi by Etienne Méhul. Also included in the collection are sixteen volumes of late 18th- and 19th-century sheet music that were presumably compiled by one or more members of the Hodges family. When originally catalogued, these volumes were classed as M1.H7 No. 1-16 and described as: "Sixteen volumes of miscellaneous printed sheet music (principally English imprints), consisting of vocal and instrumental compositions of various kinds. Being a part of the Hodges Family Collection. For a full list of the Hodges Family Collection see the report thereof on the chief's desk."

Although the chief's desk report is not available, the finding aid does give a brief bibliographic item listing for each volume. The various volumes contain both sacred and secular choral works and solo songs, organ music, piano music, and piano duets. The dates of publication range from the mid-18th century to 1892 -- suggesting that whereas many of these printed scores were collected by Edward Hodges, at least some of the volumes were compiled and bound by John Sebastian Bach or Faustina Hodges, as Edward died in 1867.

As with the Newland / Zeuner Collection, which is also housed in the Library of Congress Music Division, the scholarly significance of the Hodges materials goes well beyond their intrinsic value as early or rare prints and manuscripts. William Newland and Edward Hodges each served as composer, collector, and church musician, and each of their collections of music manuscripts and scores provides a rare insight into the musical activities of a 19th-century musician cum musicologist. Moreover, each man's additional roles as composer, arranger, and collector make their amassed collections of music sterling examples of the accretive nature of a church musician's working library in the latter half of the 19th century.

Processed by Robert Saladini, Claudia Widgery, Timothy Bullard, Cheryl Dempsey, and Albert Jones, April 1992.