Anthony van Hoboken

**Anthony van Hoboken** ( , ; 23 March 1887 &ndash; 1 November 1983) was a Dutch musical collector, bibliographer, and musicologist. He is best known known for his study of the music of Joseph Haydn. He wrote the Hoboken catalogue, which is now the standard list of Haydn's works.

## Life
### 1887–1919
Hoboken was born in Rotterdam in a rich family that worked in business, banking, and shipping. He had a lot of money and did not need to work for a living. He studied to be an engineer from 1906 to 1909 at the Technical College of Delft. In 1909, he changed to music and went to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. There, he learned harmony from Bernhard Sekles and composition from Iwan Knorr. In 1917, he moved to Munich. In 1919, he built his own house and lived with artists and intellectuals.

### His collection of musical documents
Because Hoboken was rich, he could collect old music books and papers from composers from Bach to Brahms. He started this collection in 1919 with help from the composer Otto Vrieslander. The collection grew to more than 5,000 items, including over 1,000 by Haydn.. In 1971, the Austrian government bought the collection. It is now kept in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Because Hoboken was rich, they lived a comfortable and happy life. Hoboken’s friend and teacher, Heinrich Schenker, later told about a social evening he spent with Hoboken in his apartment in Vienna:

At 9 o'clock, to Hoboken (we stay there until 3:45!) ... The Tautenhayn ensemble plays! Not until 11 o'clock does Hoboken tell me that his wife is lying in the hospital, however the matter is not serious. The evening passed extremely well; the complete naturalness in the social gathering, and in our relationship to the musicians; the rooms; the beautiful, sumptuous meal and its presentation (for which we offered the chef a toast, with applause): these made an exceptional impression on us all. Their families even went on holidays together. In 1925, Hoboken moved his family to Vienna so he could study music with Schenker. He took lessons twice a week from 1925 until 1932.

Because Hoboken was rich, he helped pay for the printing of some of Schenker’s books. He also hired a librarian to take care of his collection of first editions and original music papers. He chose Otto Erich Deutsch for this job. Deutsch was also a friend of Schenker and became a well-known music expert. Deutsch worked for Hoboken from 1926 to 1935.

### The Meister-Archiv project 
In 1927, Schenker and Hoboken started a project for the Austrian National Library. They wanted to make a collection of photos of music manuscripts by great composers. This was called the "Archive for Photographic Images of Musical Master Manuscripts." They asked other libraries to help. They said their were two important things: first, many modern music books had extra notes not in the original music, so having photos of the real manuscripts would help make better music books. Second, old manuscripts could be lost or destroyed. This was very important because World War II, which started 12 years later, caused a lot of damage and theft in Europe’s archives. Thanks to the Meister-Archiv project, some music documents which would have been lost still exist today. They had one child, Anthony Jr., born in 1937. Because Hoboken had to pay money to his first wife and support his new family, he had less money to spend on projects with Schenker, like the photo archive. Their friendship "soured" (became less close). But when Schenker died in 1935, Hoboken wrote a kind obituary for him.

Hoboken started the Haydn catalogue in 1934 using cards. He worked on it until the last book was published in 1978. Its full name is Joseph Haydn, Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis. This catalog is almost 2,000 pages long and helped organize the many musical works of Joseph Haydn, which were not well understood before. The catalog became very important, and today people often use the "Hoboken number" (shortened to "Hob" or "H") to name Haydn’s works.

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians said the first volume, which is about Haydn’s instrumental music, did not give enough information about the original music manuscripts. But Hoboken’s long study helped to collect and organize Haydn’s large number of works. It also dealt with problems like music arrangements and doubtful works. Overall, the catalogue brought order and clear identification to Haydns' works that had been confusing and uncertain for 150 years. All future studies about Haydn will owe a lot to Hoboken’s work. In 1927, when Hoboken told Schenker he had finished organizing his Haydn collection, Schenker wrote a thankful letter. He said that Hoboken’s work would help Haydn become respected again. Schenker believed that even though Haydn’s music was not taken seriously at that time, it would one day be valued by adults and experts.

## References
*Deisinger, Marko (2015) Heinrich Schenker and the Photogram Archive.  *Music Analysis*  34:221–243. Available on line at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/musa.12046/full.
*Hoboken, Antony (1957) *Joseph Haydn, Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis* ("Joseph Haydn, thematic-bibliographic catalog of works").  Mainz:  Schott.  Available in pdf format from https://archive.org/details/JosephHaydnThematisch-bibliographischesWerkverzeichnis.
*Hoboken, Anthony van. In: *Haydn (Oxford Composer Companions)*. Edited by David Wyn Jones. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002.
*King, Alec Hyatt and  Joost van Gemert (n.d.) "Anthony van Hoboken," article in online edition of *New Grove*. Accessed 5 July 2016. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/13105?q=hoboken&search=quick&pos=2&_start=1#firsthit.
*Levi, Erik (2011) *Mozart and the Nazis: How the Third Reich abused a cultural icon*. New Haven:  Yale University Press.  Extracts on line at Google Books:  https://books.google.com/books?id=AqC0k5X4ggAC&dq=otto+erich+deutsch+hoboken+librarian&pg=RA5-PA1936-IA2.
*Proksch, Bryan (2015) *Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century*. Boydell and Brewer.