Music Treasure!

When we went to visit the husband's dad's dad (Grandpa W) in July, he told me he had a box of piano music that he was going to throw out unless I wanted it.  He had kept it for many, many years and it came from family.  I told him I'd take a look through it and pick it up Labor Day weekend.  In all honesty, I thought it would be a crap load of music that I might keep a few things from and pitch the rest.  I picked up the box from him Saturday morning, thanked him, put it in the back of the van, and forgot about it.

The husband brought it inside on Sunday when he was unloading the car from our trip, which reminded me that we had it.  Everything was yellowed with age, falling apart from years of stifling heat in a garage, and really not looking so hot.  I thought, okay, I'll go through it tomorrow to see what's there and then recycle it.

I started going through the box Monday morning and couldn't believe what I was finding.  Original printings of many pieces I would definitely play or want to have a score for (e.g. Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3, Chopin Mazurkas, opera scores), many original compositions from composers for Grandpa W's aunt (who originally started this collection), and even a tiny music dictionary bound in linen and hand sewn together.  All of this stuff was from about 1900-1950.  The absolute BEST part of the entire collection were the items tucked inside many covers of books.  I found reviews of concerts from the 1940s, program schedules of performances in and around New York City during that time, notes from a teacher to students for practicing, lecture notes from Grandpa W's aunt for classes she attend at New York Music college between 1900-1910, and even some print ads for musical items for sale.  Unbelievable find.  I emailed Grandpa W and told him what I found, and he said he remembered now that his aunt (and mother, who added to the collection), would tuck those things into books and he'd clean forgot about all of them.  There was even a small Courier and Ives print tucked in one of the books!  It totally made my day.

I'm putting one of the reviews in here that I found quite interesting.  It's a review of the premiere of Hindemith's Sonata for Two Pianos.  The reviewer, the composer Virgil Thomson, didn't like it.  He also says that "Duo-pianism has a certain elephantine quality anyway."  HA!  I wonder what duo pianists today would think of that.

New York Herald-Times, late November 1942