Notes for Notes

Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library has acquired the papers of the noted American composer, Ulysses S. Kay (1917–1995). A prolific and important composer of contemporary symphonic, chamber, and choral music, Kay also wrote five operas, the most substantial and last of which, Jubilee (1976) and Frederick Douglass (1991), were based on themes from African American history.

Kay was encouraged by William Grant Still to study music and attended the University of Arizona as an undergraduate. He received an M.A. in composition from the Eastman School, where he worked with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, and then studied under Paul Hindemith at Yale. After serving in the navy during World War II, Kay returned to New York to work with Otto Luening at Columbia. Between 1952 and 1968, he worked as an editorial advisor and later music consultant with Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), building a name for himself as a composer by writing music in the evenings and on weekends. Kay finished his career with two decades as a professor at Herbert Lehman College (CUNY), retiring in 1988.

Highlights of the collection include a large number of Kay's scores in manuscript, a substantial collection of press cuttings relating to performances of his works and those of his colleagues, diaries from his student years, and notes for speeches on numerous topics. His correspondence includes letters from William Grant Still and from his wife, Barbara Kay, during her periods of imprisonment as a civil rights activist, and detailed correspondence with librettist, Donald Dorr, about the construction of his last two operas.

When organized and processed, the Kay papers will be available for use. For further information, call the library at (212) 854-5153.

On 3 November 2009, the Juilliard School celebrated the completion of its new room for the Juilliard Manuscript Collection with a special concert in Alice Tully Hall, featuring performances of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge and the last scene of Le nozze di Figaro, with musicological commentary by L. Michael Griffel and Christoph Wolff, respectively. On this occasion the school also announced that board chairman, Bruce Kovner, had donated two additional manuscripts to the school: the engraved proof-copy vocal score of Mendelssohn's Elijah, with extensive corrections and annotations by the composer, and Beethoven's corrected manuscript of his "Kreutzer" Sonata for violin and piano, op. 47.

At the time of its auction sale, the Elijah score was described by Sotheby's as "a striking and important item: a proof of the vocal score of one of Mendelssohn's greatest works, extensively and heavily revised by the composer, following the first performances." The score of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata is the only surviving complete manuscript of this renowned work. It is a complex manuscript, in the hand of several copyists, with extensive revisions by the composer as well as annotations by his pupil, Ferdinand Ries. Formerly in the archives of Simrock, the publisher of the first edition of the work, the manuscript was acquired by Henle in 1954, and resided in their archives until its sale at Sotheby's in 2007.

Digital copies of both scores have been added to the Juilliard Manuscript Collection Web site: http://www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org (accessed 18 November 2009).

Jane Gottlieb

The Juilliard School

The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University recently acquired the personal papers, music business documents, and memorabilia of Charlie Walker, a long-time member of the Grand Ole Opry. Walker, who passed away on 12 September 2008, was a Texas native who rose to fame in the early 1940s through his performances with Bill Boyd's Cowboy Ramblers. Following service in Japan after World War II, he returned to Texas and built a big following on Radio KMAC in San Antonio in the 1950s. He also ran a club in that city, The Barn, where he booked many big-name country acts, including Hank Williams. Walker pursued a career as a solo performer and made his first records for the Imperial label in 1952. He moved to Decca in 1954 where he recorded "Tell Her Lies and Feed Her Candy," that was to become one of his signature songs. His biggest hit was "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down," which he recorded for Columbia in 1958. This was also the first hit song written by legendary songwriter Harlan Howard. After a move to Nashville in 1967, Walker became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He continued to enjoy a career in music up until the time of his death.

Walker's personal papers were donated to the Center for Popular Music by his widow, Connie Walker. Mrs. Walker sought a home for her late husband's materials where they would be preserved and made available to students and other researchers interested in the history of country music, radio broadcasting, and the workings of the music industry. Before contacting the center, she did some preliminary work sorting and organizing the materials, as well as assembling several scrapbooks.

The Charlie Walker Collection consists of 26.56 linear feet of unprocessed personal papers, including correspondence, recording contracts, earnings statements, articles, and newspaper clippings. There are also approximately 1,000 sound recordings in various formats, both commercial and unpublished videotapes, photographs, performance programs, trade catalogs, songbooks, directories, souvenir folios and sheet music. Because of the size and extent of the collection it will take several months for the center's archival staff to process it and make it available to researchers. Mrs. Walker is volunteering one day a week of her time to help with the processing of the collection.

For additional information about this or other collections at the Center for Popular Music, contact Grover Baker, the center's librarian, at (615) 898-5512 or gbaker@mtsu.edu. The center's collections may also be searched online at http://popmusic.mtsu.edu.

The Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives at the University of the District of Columbia has received a vast collection of jazz recordings from the author and critic, Will Friedwald. Herb Friedwald (1935–1997), Will's father, developed an early love for jazz, and while an undergraduate student at Tulane University, he became an active participant in the New Orleans jazz revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His son, Will, enthusiastically shared his father's love of jazz, and is a noted jazz critic who has written seven books on music and popular culture, including the autobiography of Tony Bennett, the survey Jazz Singing, and Stardust Melodies, which tells the history of twelve of America's most popular songs. He was the jazz critic for The New York Sun and currently writes for The Wall Street Journal. He has received eight GRAMMY nominations and his biography of Frank Sinatra, The Song Is You, received the ASCAP Deems Taylor award in 1996.

The donated collection includes approximately 10,000 items dating from the 1940s through the 1990s that cover jazz from traditional New Orleans style to cutting edge avant-garde experimentalism. It will be available for research use and a complete inventory list will be available at the archives' Web site, http://www.wrlc.org/~lrdudc/jazzhome.html (accessed 18 November 2009).

The Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives is the university's stellar jazz research and resource center that houses several major collections including the collection of the late Felix Grant, the internationally renowned jazz authority and radio personality. For more information, contact the Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives at (202) 274-5265 or jazzarchives@wrlc.org.

The Library of Congress Music Division is processing choral music from the 1930s by Hungarian composers, which were acquired in 1953. The works are part of the holdings of the former Hungarian Reference Library of New York (HRL, 1937–1942), which housed various materials about Hungary and Hungarians. The HRL as an institution represented an effort to foster Hungarian cultural heritage within the Hungarian-American community. Additionally, the choral scores, original Hungarian publications of sacred and secular songs, embody the surge of nationalistic pride in Hungarian traditions and history that inspired the musical community during this era. Versions of Zoltá Kodály's Ének Szent Istvákirályhoz (Hymn to St. Stephen) number among this group: mixed chorus, men's voices, boys' chorus, and unison treble chorus with organ. Music by rediscovered composers also emerges; for example, Dezso Boldis' Katonanótáh (Soldier Songs), based on Hungarian folk songs. More than fifty scores printed by the Magyar Kórus publishing house in the 1930s are being processed.

The larger Library of Congress acquisition included the personal library of Charles Feleky, a Hungarian emigrant, musician, and the visionary behind the HRL, and materials collected after Feleky's death in 1930. The scores are believed to have come from László, the then director of the HRL. This music was likely sung at community concerts at the HRL or by the Budapest University Chorus (BUC) on their U.S. tour. Some of the works performed by the BUC at Yale University on 2 February 1937 are in the collection, e.g., Kodály's Karádi nóták (Songs from Karád), Antal Molnár's A Kaposi kanális (The Kapos Canal), and Lajos Bárdos's Széles a Duna (The Danube is Wide). In fact, dedications to the BUC and its music director Victor Vaszy appear on the scores for the songs by Molnár and Bárdos.

As part of this project, catalog records for many of these scores are entering international databases for the first time. For further information on the HRL and the library's acquisition, see Kenneth E. Nyirády’s definitive book The History of the Feleky Collection and Its Acquisition by the Library of Congress (Washington, DC: European Division, 1995).

Veronica Kiss

Library of Congress

East Carolina University's Music Library was recently named the top scoring reference service provider to date among the music libraries that have participated in the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program (WOREP). WOREP was developed in the 1980s by librarians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ohio State University who were later joined by colleagues from the University of Rhode Island, Kent State University, and the Music Library Association. By gathering feedback from both the patron and the library employee assisting them with their query, the study provides valid and reliable data on a library's effectiveness in answering reference questions. In the roughly twenty-five years since the study began, a total of 135 libraries (including twenty-one music libraries) in the United States and Canada have participated.

Notes Staff News. With this issue, Paul Cary completes his term as editor of the journal's "Digital Media Reviews" column. Since the June 2006 issue (vol. 62, no. 4), Paul brought to these pages insightful reviews of important resources for music libraries. His choice of items to be reviewed, as well as his careful choice of reviewers, has provided our readers with solid, and well-written, critiques of new and continuing media. Beginning with the June 2010 issue (vol. 66, no. 4), responsibility for this column will be in the hands of Anne Shelley. We know that, like Paul, she will bring to our readers the same rigorous examination and engaging reviews of digital media resources.