Special Collections Finding Aids

Fleischer Notation Collection - Manuscripts

Accession: SC1998.67

Location: M2B 4,5-6

Size: .5 feet

Biography: Oskar Fleischer (1856-1933) was a German musicologist trained under Spitta. He was the first president of the Internationale Musik-Gesellschaft and editor of its publications along with Johannes Wolf. Prominent among his own publications were works on ancient music notation.

Provenance: Sibley Library purchased this collection along with several other components of Fleischer's library and working collection in 1929. The collection was purchased through the agent Paul Gottschalk. Among the other items are the 35 manuscript copy volumes of musical treatises that have been cataloged separately under the classification ML96 .F596. Also purchased was a small collection of iconography clipped from published sources. No original catalog of the manuscript collection has survived.

Scope and Content: The collection constitutes a representative selection of samples of music notation from ca1000-1600. The items are manuscript leaves extracted from larger works. The collection is an outstanding teaching tool for the study of the history of music notation. Handwritten descriptive notes in German accompany some of the items. A numbering system was established by an unknown source, possibly Fleischer, at some point in the past, but does not survive for all of the items. Some of the items were described by DeRicci, while others were possibly removed and framed for display. With a few possible exceptions, most of items 74-95 are not from the Fleischer collection but have been included here for convenience in creating a teaching collection. Items 84-95 are framed and either on display in the special collections reading room or in storage with the framed iconography.

Associations: As mentioned above, Watanabe Special Collections also holds an iconography and a manuscript copy collection from Fleischer's library.

Restrictions: none

Series: 1

Series Name: Manuscripts

Series Description: The series consists of manuscript leaves extracted from larger works and illustrating the development of music notation. The descriptions here should be considered as provisional and subject to subsequent correction and expansion. Incipits have been provided for the first legible text on the recto of each folium when possible. A period has been added after each text incipit for the sake of clarity. Dimensions are given in centimeters and refer to the size of the fragment or single leaf, not to the size of the bifolium. The first 83 items are stored in boxes 1 through 4. The remaining items 84 through 95 have been framed and are on display or are stored with the framed iconography.