What if I need to find Beethoven Manuscripts?

The Morgan Library and Museum, in New York, has a website called Music Manuscripts Online - it could be just what you need!  Why not take a look?  (We've saved this link at our Library Music Portal on Moodle, so it's there when needed.  Like for your forthcoming Beethoven essay, maybe?)

http://www.themorgan.org/music

From the website:- "The goal of the Music Manuscripts Online project has been to create and to provide online access to high-quality images and descriptions of music manuscripts owned by The Morgan Library & Museum. Works by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Fauré, Haydn, Liszt, Mahler, Massenet, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Puccini, Schubert, and Schumann, among many others, can be viewed on these pages. Images and descriptions of these manuscripts will be available on the Morgan’s Web site for study by scholars, musicians, and the general public."

Historic Musical Instruments

'Whittaker' was trying to identify an instrument the other day. He still hasn't sourced what's in his mind's eye, although it appears to be some kind of wooden whistle, in C.

However, he does now know what a mid-19th century flageolet looks like. And what a weird beast it is!

Music Treasures on Verizon.net

Where can you see historic instruments?

• North of the Border, why not visit Edinburgh University's Collection of Historic Musical Instruments?
• In London, the Victoria and Albert Musical Instruments Collection is now closed – find out how you can gain access to these instruments for study purposes.
• If you can't just walk into the V and A, at least you still have their list of online links to other collections! (Smithsonian National Museum of American History; Smithsonian Global Sound; Royal Academy of Music; Horniman Museum Musical Instruments Collections; Royal College of Music)
• Doctoral student Elizabeth Ford at the University of Glasgow has suggested the Dayton Miller Collection at the Library of Congress is a worthy addition to this list. Reported to be the the largest collection of flutes in the world.
• Do you know of other collections that should be in this list?

Beethoven manuscripts and sketches digitised

Beethoven MSS and sketches online at two American libraries:- 

• Morgan Library and Museum. Music Manuscripts online.  Here's the Beethoven direct link.
• The Juilliard Manuscript Collection.  Again, here's the Beethoven link.

I think you'll agree with me these are fantastic resources, and they'll be great when Christina Guillaumier leads our undergraduates' research into original Beethoven sources. I'll "catalogue" both websites online, so the links will be permanently in our catalogue when you need them.

And how did I get these gems?  I asked my music library colleagues on Twitter, and got a quick response from the Yale Music Library.  (and that, my friends, is the value of so-called social networking.  Or should we call it socio-professional networking?)

NB RSAMD becomes Royal Conservatoire of Scotland tomorrow, 1st September.  The catalogue link will change to http://prism.talis.com/rcs/