Nicolas Slonimsky collection
Contributors: Nicolas Slonimsky Collection (Library of Congress)
Published: 1873
Language: mul
Number of pages: 600
Subjects: Correspondence; Manuscripts; Music
Description: Collection contains materials collected by Slonimsky throughout his lifetime that document his life and work as musicologist, composer, conductor, lecturer and author. Included are personal biographical materials; Slonimsky's writings (drafts, typescripts, reprints, etc.) of newspaper, periodical, journal, and magazine articles, record liner notes, radio broadcasts, and talks, published and unpublished; music composed by Slonimsky, manuscript and printed; concert programs; correspondence, among many others, with Henry Cowell, Alexandre Gretchaninoff, Roy Harris, Charles Ives, and Edgar Varèse; biographical materials on composers and performers mosly generated when Slonimsky was editing Baker's and The international cyclopedia; music collected by Slonimsky, manuscript and printed and multi-composer collections; among the manuscripts are many short holographic works and fragments; scrapbooks; and iconographical material, such as family photographs an those of composers and musicians from the former Soviet Union, as well as little known musicians from the United States and elsewhere.
Notes: Open to research.

Access Advisory: Not all materials in this collection may be readily accessible; please request accessibility information well in advance of your visit http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/perform.contact

Nicholas Slonimsky Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.

Certain restrictions to use or copying of materials may apply.

Acquisition Nicholas Slonimsky 1969

Acquisition Electra Yourke 1999

Nicholas Slonimsky, lexicographer, composer, and writer on music, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Apr. 27, 1894. He studied the piano with his aunt, Isabelle Vengerova, a well-known piano pedagogue, at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and composition with Glière. He taught at the Eastman School of Music (1923¡1925). He was Serge Koussevitzky's secretary for two years and conducted the Boston Chamber Orchestra (1927¡1934) and the Harvard University Orchestra (1927¡1930). In the 1930s and early 1940s he became known for conducting first performances of Ives, Varèse, Riegger, Cowell, Chàvez, and other composers of the Americas. He was a lecturer at Colorado College (1940, 1947¡1949), the Peabody Conservatory (1956¡1957), and the University of California at Los Angeles (1964¡1967). Slonimsky was author or editor of major music reference works, including Music Since 1900, Music of Latin America, The international cyclopedia of music and musicians, 4th ed., Thesaurus of scales and melodic patterns, Lexicon of musical invective, and many editions of Baker's biographical dictionary. He died on Dec. 25, 1995, in Los Angeles.

Finding aid available in the Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room and at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu002011