Notes for Notes

The Music Library Association has announced its election results. Michael Colby (University of California, Davis) was elected to the position of vice-president/president-elect, and Pamela Bristah (Wellesley College) was elected to the position of recording secretary. Elected to the MLA board of directors as members-at-large for the 2012–14 term were Paula Hickner (University of Kentucky), Steve Landstreet (Free Library of Philadelphia), and Mark Scharff (Washington University, St. Louis).

The Music Library Association announced its publication and research awards at the 2012 annual meeting in Dallas. The Vincent H. Duckles Award for the best book-length bibliography or other research tool in music published in 2010 was awarded to Christophe Grabowski and John Rink for their book Annotated Catalogue of Chopin’s First Editions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). The awards committee noted “Christophe Grabowski and John Rink’s Annotated Catalogue of Chopin’s First Editions represents a ten-year effort on the part of the authors to produce an inventory of Chopin first editions held in libraries and private collections. It opens with a fine historical overview of the legal contexts, physical characteristics, printing methods, and publishers of these editions, highlighting the differences in the practices of the various countries where the works were issued. The catalog is further enhanced by a thorough introduction to the descriptive method used within, five appendices, and more than 200 plates depicting the title pages of first editions. The catalog proper is as comprehensive as possible, describing 4800 copies of works with and without opus numbers, published in the composer’s lifetime and after his death. These qualities, along with its fine organization and scholarly apparatus make this catalog a model of musicological bibliography and contribute much to our knowledge of the creative history of these early editions.” The Eva Judd O’Meara Award for the best 2010 review in Notes was awarded to Pieter Mannaerts for his review of The Critical Nexus: Tone-system, Mode, and Notation in Early Medieval Music by Charles M. Atkinson. His review was published in Notes 66, no. 3 (March 2010): 549–51. The committee noted that Mannaerts’s review “presents an engaging and readable evaluation of a book that covers a complex and multifaceted subject. From its opening quotation of Guido of Arezzo’s Prologus in antiphonarium, Mannaerts’s analysis captures the reader’s interest and clearly summarizes the book at hand. Even in this brief review we begin to see the difficulties medieval theorists faced in reconciling ancient Greek harmonic theory with the practices of contemporary liturgical chant. Mannaerts’s subject knowledge allows him to highlight important elements of the text and explain to nonspecialists why they are important, and he handles this in such an approachable way that he is sure to bring new readers to Atkinson’s book.” The Richard S. Hill Award for the best article on music librarianship or best article of a music-bibliographic nature published in 2010 was awarded to Kate van Orden and Alfredo Vitolo for their article “Padre Martini, Gaetano Gaspari and the ‘Pagliarini Collection’: A Renaissance Music Library Rediscovered,” Early Music History 29 (2010): 241–324. The awards committee wrote: “Kate van Orden and Alfredo Vitolo trace the history of the Pagliarini collection of late Renaissance prints from its formation c.1580 to its purchase by Padre Martini from the Pagliarini booksellers of Rome, who had in turn secured the collection as discards from the convent of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome. The authors give extraordinary care and attention to detail in describing the collection and in constructing several indices including a complete index of the collection and an index of the unica.”

Research Awards: The Carol June Bradley Award supports studies that deal with the history of music libraries or special collections. The 2011 award was given to Jim Carrier, a veteran journalist and filmmaker. The award will support research trips to Boston and the Dena Epstein archives at Columbia College in Chicago in preparation for his planned documentary film The Librarian and the Banjo on Epstein’s journey of discovery, “the story of a white music librarian, toiling for 25 years . . . reading microfiche...