The Latest Berlioz Finds

JACQUES BARZUN

In !<)!;} Professor Barzun established a Hector Berlioz Collection in
the Libraries. Roland Baughman worked closely with him during the
ensuing years in developing the research value of this important col¬
lection of autograph letters, manuscripts, rare editions, recordings,
and memorabilia. After the death of Mr. Baughman last October,
friends and colleagues contributed to a inemorial fund. Subsequently
a significant collection of Berlioz letters and manuscripts became avail¬
able and was acquired as an especially appropriate memorial to Mr.
Baughman. Professor Barzun now writes about some of the most nota¬
ble items in this newest addition to the collection.           editor's note

MR. RICHARD MACNUTT is one of that band of
young British enthusiasts who are preparing the first
complete scholarly edition of Berlioz's musical works,
as well as the commemoration, in 1969, of the centenary of the
composer's death. In pursuit of documents, scores, sketches, and
memorabilia for those two purposes, Mr. Macnutt approached
that well-known but hither-to impregnable repository, the de-
scendents of Berlioz's married sister Nanci. With consummate
and patient strategy, Richard Macnutt conquered the Bastille and
made extraordinary finds, which—with great generosity and feel¬
ing for the existing Berlioz collection at Columbia—he has per¬
mitted the Library to acquire.

In these new treasures every kind of valuable is represented—
unknown music, new and characteristic letters, parts of compo.si-
tions known about but "lost," intimate notes about life and art,
annotated scores and librettos, and what is perhaps the only ex¬
tant example of a musical idea as Berlioz developed it, on the page
itself, into a complete work. The forty-two documents, large and
small, are all so full of fresh information, so rich in suggestion
about the man and artist, that it is difficult to pick out the gems.