Music History in Images

Germany has produced some of the best scholarly and encyclopedic projects for hundreds of years. One such set is the Musikgeschichte in Bildern [Music History in Pictures] series published by between 1961 and 1989. These books were assembled by some of the best European scholars of the time.  So while the scholarship may be lost to most American readers, these volumes are still an incredible visual resource.

Series I - Musikethnologie = Music Ethnology

This project was divided into four series.  The first one is focused on music ethnology, what is often called ethnomusicology.  The volumes in this series capture the traditional music of various regions, often through photographs of musical performance and musical instruments.  Those not knowing German lose a great deal in not following the descriptive text, but still gain a great deal through the vivid images.  Our set is incomplete, but includes volumes on Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and South Pacific Islands), Native Americans, Southeast and South Asia and all regions of Africa.

source: Volume 1/4 South Asia - Famous North Indian Dhrupad singers Moinudden and Aminuddin Dagar, accompanied by Suraiya Dagar on the tanpura (photo: Gurmeet Singh)

Volume 1/1 Ozeanien = Oceania 

Volume 1/2 Amerika: Eskimo und indianische Bevölkerung = Native American Inhabitants of America.

Volume 1/3 Südostasien = Southeast Asia

Volume 1/4 Südasien: Die indische Musik und ihre Traditionen = South Asia: Indian Music and its Traditions

Volume 1/8 Nordafrika = North Africa

Volume 1/9 Zentralafrika = Central Africa

Volume 1/10 Ostafrika = East Africa

Volume 1/11 Westafrika = West Africa

Series II - Musik des Altertums = Music of Antiquity

The second series, Music of Antiquity presents images showing musical activity from the earliest civilizations that have left behind a visual record. These depictions of ancient musical life can only give us the dimmest sense of what this long-lost music sounded like.

source: Volume 2/2 Mesopotamia - A terracotta relief of a performance of an arched harp from the Old Babylonian era between ca. 1950-1530 BCE (in the Louvre)

Volume 2/1 Agypten = Egypt

Volume 2/2 Mesopotamien = Mesopotamia

Volume 2/4 Griechenland = Greece

Volume 2/5 Etrurien und Rom = The Etruscans and Rome

Volume 2/7 Alt-Amerika Musik der Indianer in präkolumbischer Zeit = Ancient American Music of the Pre-Columbian Indians

Volume 2/8 Altindien = Ancient India

Volume 2/9 Mittelasien = Central Asia

Series 3: Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance = Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

The third series presents the earliest musical notations of the West and images of European music-making taken from paintings and drawings. 

source: Volume 3/9 Musical Life in the 16th Century - Music-Making Women, oil on oak, in the Rohrau Castle, Austria

Volume 3/2 Islam.

Volume 3/3 Musikerziehung: Lehre und Theorie der Musik im Mittelalter = Music Education: Music Theory and Learning

 
Volume 3/4 Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik = Manuscripts of Monophonic Music

Volume 3/5 Schriftbild der mehrstimmigen Musik = Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music

Volume 3/8 Musikleben im 15. Jahrhundert = Musical Life in the 15th Century

Volume 3/9 Musikleben im 16. Jahrhundert = Musical Life in the 16th Century

Series 4: Musik der Neuzeit = Music of Modernity

Music of Modernity draws from European paintings, drawings, lithographs, books and magazines from the 17th century until the 20th century. Volumes depict operatic performances, concert life as well as the music of social dancing.  The humorous illustration below shows a chain-reaction during the galop with other participants in a gallery below and a sizable orchestra in the balcony.

source: Volume 4/5 Dance in the 19th Century - The great Galop by Johann Strauss (1839), print by Andres Geiger after a painting Christian Scholler

Volume 4/1 Oper Szene und Darstellung von 1600 bis 1900 = Opera Scenes and Presentations from 1600 to 1900

Volume 4/2 Konzert: öffentliche Musikdarbietung vom 17. bis 19. Jahrhundert = Concerts: Public Music Performance from the 17th to 19th centuries

Volume 4/3 Haus- und Kammermusik Privates Musizieren im gesellschaftlichen Wandel zwischen 1600 und 1900 = Domestic and Chamber Music Private music-making in social change between 1600 and 1900

Volume 4/4 Tanz im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert = Dance in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Volume 4/5 Tanz im 19. Jahrhundert = Dance in the 19th Century

Pictures in Peril

In The Cleaning of Paintings, Hulmut Ruhemann sums up the book Pictures in Peril as follows:

The various hazards to which pictures may be subjects--war, fire, mutilation, repainting, incompetent or dishonest restoration--are classified and illustrated by notable cases. An interesting but rather popularized account.

Details from Jacob Jordaen's Adam and Eve (De Zondeval: Eva biedt Adam het fruit aan (Genesis 3:6), ca. 1630, at the Budapest Szépmüvészeti Múzeum

Above: A 19th century of overpainting of the work
Below: The restoration after the removal of the overpainting (source: ThinkVisual'2 blog)

The images above show how greatly a work of art can be distorted and damaged by its owner.  In Pictures in Peril, the pseudonymous author H.H. Pars the tale of how a Hungarian nobleman gave away this painting that had hung in a servant's quarters and later in a lumber room.  Although the painting had been retouched, the recipient recognized a great difference in skill between the brushwork of the faces and the rest of the work. Experts appraised the painting and realized that the original work lay underneath and could be restored.  We can see that the searching, questioning faces of the original Adam and Eve below are far more powerful than touched-up Adam's jovial smile and the touched-up Eva's stern countenance.

That "the art treasures of Europe have been in constant movement" is the central idea behind Pictures in Peril. For centuries, art masterworks have been carried off through pillage, as war plunder, and seized by theft and fraud. A good many more have been destroyed through human folly, in fires, earthquakes, and lost in sunken ships.  The author gives the example of Caravaggio's Danaë which was mutilated by a mad king, but many other artworks were neglected in more mundane ways like being used to prop open a door or becoming a window shutter.

No history of lost and destroyed art can be complete without discussing iconoclasm, the breaking or destroying of images to prevent idolatry and their use in worship.  The author quotes Friedrich Schiller's account of the mobs who, at the instigation of Calvinist iconoclasts, vandalized and looted churches, destroying organs, artworks, stained glass window.  They even hacked a wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross to pieces while leaving the crucified thieves intact.  This movement took its name from the 9th century Byzantine iconoclasm which the author notes produced the benefit of causing great artists and their secret knowledge of painting materials and techniques to migrate to Western Europe.

The French revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars led to great destruction and displacement of artworks. While occupying Rome, French forces seized many golden and silver art objects, melting them down. Other objects became spoils of war to "adorn the reign of freedom" in revolutionary France.

At the same time the author recounts many heroic figures who did their best to rescue precious works of art, hiding them or moving them to safety. There are also many tales of individuals who worked to restore damaged or neglected art works. However, the author points out that many of the earliest attempts at art preservation were more akin to alchemy than to chemistry in their techniques and often caused greater harm than good.

While most of the book deals with outright theft and destruction of artworks, a subtler way to pillage for artwork is with the checkbook. There is a chapter devoted to the Duveen Brothers, London art dealers who supplied European masterworks to mega-wealthy of America's Gilded Age. Possession of important cultural icons lifted the collectors to a "new social plain." These artworks could also confer tax benefits if they were donated to public institutions like art museums. San Franciscans who visit the California Palace of the Legion of Honor are beneficiaries of the collecting prowess of Samuel H. Kress, the magnate who founded the Kress "five and dime" retail chain.

After reading this chatty book, I later learned that H.H. Pars is the pseudonym for Hans Diebow who during the German Third Reich was a Nazi journalist and active anti-Semitic propagandist.  In a book review of the Handbook of Anti-Semitism (Handbook des Antisemitismus - De Gruyter, 2009), the author singled out Diebow as a "rightly forgotten writer" (zu recht vergessenen Schriftstellers). 

Nevertheless, the 13th chapter of Pictures in Peril devotes several pages to the destruction of art during the Second World War and lays a good deal of the blame on Adolph Hitler and German Fascism. For Pars / Diebow the Third Reich were the "heirs" of earlier Calvinist and Byzantine iconoclasm. He found the damage was done both through the removal of art works from museum collections

and the sidelining and persecution of artists who would not submit to being tools of the state. Perhaps he sought to pardon his own involvement by stating that those who did not join with the Nazi party "lost the right to practice their profession."  

He also describes the vigor with which high-ranking Nazis looted museums and private collections with some leaders avidly appropriating otherwise banned artworks.  They were happy to "expropriate" collections of the great Jewish families. Inventorying the thousands of precious artworks they pillaged from the Palais Rothschild they enthused over "objects of such singular character that it is impossible to assess their value." (The Monuments Men, a popular book made into a film, tells part of this tale.) 

In order to bring a book like this up to date, it would be essential to detail how dealers and collectors have taken advantage of conflict and poverty to steal works from the developing world.  A recent example that came to light through the Pandora Papers were that Cambodian artworks illegally acquired by San Francisco's Asian Art Museum through disgraced art dealer Douglas Latchford.  The Museum was obliged to repatriate the works that they assumed "had left their places of origin in a legal manner."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Broder, Henryk M., "Antisemitismus-Forschung: 'Abgefeimte Techniken'," Der Spiegel (January 27, 2010).

Edsel, Robert M. & Brett Witter, The Monuments Men : Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Little, Brown and Company, 2013).

Irwin, Veronica, "Asian Art Museum reckons with Cambodian antiquities of disputed provenance," San Francisco Examiner (October 14, 2021).

Pars, H. H., Pictures in Peril, translated by Kathrine Talbot (Oxford University Press, 1957).

"Responses from museums to Pandora Papers antiquities investigation." Washington Post (October 5, 2021).

Ruhemann, Helmut, The Cleaning of Paintings: Problems and Potentialities (Faber, 1968).

Re-opening The Art, Music and Recreation Center

After a long pandemic hiatus, the Art, Music and Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public is open again!  

Come back to enjoy our Etching and Engraving Picture File of 19th century engravings cataloged by subject.

"Parties" - images from the Etching and Engraving Picture File

Peruse our popular song book collections.

Page through beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogs.

Take a spin with our collection of vintage vinyl.

Visit our webpage to learn more about the resources of the Art, Music and Recreation Center.  We also have a listing of Art and Music related online databases.

If you can't visit us at the Fourth Floor at the top of the stairs in the Main Library, you can reach us by phone as 415-557-4525 or by email at artmusicrec@sfpl.org.

Presentation: The Kinks

A virtual talk and slideshow by 

Richie Unterberger

Rock historian and author Richie Unterberger presents an event spotlighting the prime work of the Kinks, one of the greatest British rock groups. Paced by the witty songwriting of singer Ray Davies and fiery guitar of his brother Dave, the band moved from the raucous British Invasion rock of their first hits in the mid-1960s to deft satirical observations of English life and eccentric characters. This program spotlights classics like “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “A Well Respected Man,” “Sunny Afternoon,” “Waterloo Sunset” and “Lola,” as well as other highlights from their career in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Richie Unterberger is the author of numerous rock history books, including volumes on the Beatles, the Who, the Velvet Underground, Bob Marley and 1960s folk-rock. He teaches courses on rock and soul music history at several Bay Area colleges. His next book, to be published by Taschen in 2022, is San Francisco: Portrait of a City.

Tuesday, January 4th

noon - 1:30pm

Register HERE!

This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Titles available in the Art, Music & Recreation Center on the Kinks:

Americana : the Kinks, the riff, the road : the story / Ray Davies                780.2 D2887a2 

God save the Kinks : a biography / Rob Jovanovic                                        780.2 ZK62jo  

Kink : an autobiography / Dave Davies                                                  780.2 ZK62d 1997  

The Kinks : a thoroughly English phenomenon / Carey Fleiner                    784.5 ZK621f  

The Kinks : all day and all of the night / by Doug Hinman                            780.2 ZK62hi

The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society / Andy Miller            780.2 ZK62mi 

The Kinks kronikles / John Mendelssohn                                                     784.5 ZK621m 

The Kinks : the official biography / by Jon Savage                                       784.5 ZK621s  

Ray Davies : a complicated life / Johnny Rogan                                    780.2 D2887r 2016  

The story of the Kinks : you really got me / Nick Hasted                             780.2 ZK62ha 

X-ray / Ray Davies                                                                                          780.2 D2887a  

Wagner, Eight Hands and the Boston Music Company

The restoration of the San Francisco Public Library Main Library after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire resulted in the creation of a Music Department and a robust collection of scores and sheet music.  Julian Waybur, who can rightly be considered the founder of our "Music Library," wrote in 1920:

Before 1906 there were but 105 volumes in the music division--today, roughly speaking our list comprises 309 opera scores, 311 song volumes, 1260 for piano, 33 for organ, 272 for violin, 83 for violoncello, miscellaneous 25 unbound music, song, piano, violin, etc,... The volumes of bound music contain thousands of pieces.

He attributed the continued growth of the this collection greatly to City Librarian Robert Rea ("the present most efficient librarian"). However, the earliest scores added to the collection came through post-earthquake donations.  Waybur made special note of one large and significant donation:

It is well that the music-lovers and musicians of California should know that the greatest indebtedness of the San Francisco Public Library is to the Boston Music Company, a branch of G. Schirmer's music house in New York, which in 1909 turned over its complete music circulating library to our public library.

Indeed, some of the rarest and most unusual scores in our reference stacks came from this donation. The City Librarian's report of 1911 noted that the library bound nearly all of the unbound items in the Boston Music Company in Holliston Mills library buckram "as it is strong and durable and less expensive than leather." The assumption when one reads of this donation is that these were works published by Schirmer and the Boston Music Company, but many are European publications that are today very rare.

The historical significance of this acquisition was great enough that it is acknowledged on the Wall of Library Heroes at the Larkin Street entrance to the Main Library. This inscription incorrectly identifies this as a purchase when it was in fact a gift from the Boston Music Company.

Among these rarities bestowed upon us were chamber works arranged for 2 Pianos, 8 Hands.  In case you need help with the math, this ensemble consists of 2 pianos with 2 pianists seated at each bench, each contributing 2 hands - (2+2)+(2+2).  While today may seem rather an extravagance to gather so many pianists together to realize a composition, this kind of music making was popular in the late 19th century into the early 20th century.  

Before the dawn of recordings and radio if you wanted to experience a musical work, somebody had to perform it.  In fact, you might have to play it yourself.  Smaller works might be realized by a single pianist, but large scale works like symphonies and opera could require larger forces (and more hands to pitch in). There is also something very gratifying about getting "inside" of a work and participating with others in its realization.

The subject headings used for music written for these forces is Piano music (Pianos (2), 8 hands), Arranged -- Parts.  Or some times it's classified by the genre being realized.  Just a keyword search for "8 hands" in quotes limited to scores will bring up the greatest number of results in our collection.

One of the Holliston Mills buckram bound sets of unbound items is a collection of 20 arrangements for 2 pianos and 8 hands of works by Richard Wagner.  Some of these works are actually arrangements of virtuosic concert piano pieces by Franz Liszt based on Wagner's music.

You can browse the contents of these works online at the call number 786.48 W12c.

In the pre-computer days, library circulation was recorded by a slip inside the book or score.  It was filed with the due date and library card number recorded.  In the case of this collection's circulation there are a few fascinating details.  First, on July 27, 1916 this volume was loaned to "Seeger U.C." with "Mr. Rea's perm.[ission]."  

The Seeger in question had to be the famed musicologist and composer Charles Seeger, then a professor at the University of California Berkeley and not yet the father of the even more famous folksinger Pete Seeger.  It's also striking to note that the earliest activity for this volume happened even before the opening of the Music Department in the soon-to-be completed (1917) Main Library. 

The other special note on the circulation slip reads "Alma Rother, Poly."  This refers to head of the music department at Polytechnic High School.  A search through our San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner databases will bring up many performances by Alma Rother and her high school students.

One additional delight can be found on the date due slip on the inside of the volume.  The reminder to take good care of library material and return it promptly is rather sternly and curtly stated (in a scolding passive voice):

Careful usage of books is expected, and any soiling, injury or loss is to be paid for by the borrower. A fine of five cents will be imposed for each day or fraction thereof that this book is kept overdue.

That nickel fine today, with inflation, would be more than a dollar. We should all continue to hope for "careful usage" to prevent "injury" to our publicly-owned collections.

Bibliography:

Nunan, Thomas, "One of the Best Collections of Published Music Works Belongs to San Francisco," San Francisco Examiner (September 22, 1912).

Report of the Board of Trustees of  San Francisco Public Library for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30 , 1911 ([The Library, 1911).

"Tablet Dedicated to Julian Waybur," San Francisco Chronicle (November 27, 1927)

Waybur, Julian R. "Music of the San Francisco Public Library," News Notes of California Libraries (April 1920).

Workshop: Hand Woven Wall Art

 MakeArt program with the Museum of Craft & Design

Join the Art, Music & Recreation Center and the Museum of Craft & Design for a virtual hand weaving workshop. This textile craft opportunity is inspired by SFPL 4th Floor's Pandemic Pastimes and MCD's Mode Brut exhibitions.

In this workshop, learn basic techniques and foundational weave structures to create your own mini-tapestry. Free MakeArt Kits with all the necessary supplies will be available at the 4th floor reference desk. Call (415) 557-4488 to check availability. One must be registered for the workshop to receive a kit.

You can also use your own supplies:

• Stiff cardboard approx. 7" x 12"
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Pencil
• String
• Variety of different sized yarns and cur fabric strips

Optional:

• Plastic embroidery needle
• Dowel or natural stick (7" x 12" depending on cardboard size)

WEDNESDAY 11/10/21

4:00PM - 5:00PM

REGISTER HERE

Hand weaving and textile craft resources can be found in our collections under the general call numbers 745.5 and 746.

This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library

Donald Pippin (1925-2021)

Donald Pippin's contributions to San Francisco's musical life are so great that they deserve a stand-alone blog.  In addition to being a consummate musician, he was also an author and impresario.  After Pippin's passing away on July 7, 2021, Janos Gereben wrote a fine tribute and short biography of Pippin for the San Francisco Classical Voice.  Joshua Kosman's appreciative memorial in the San Francisco Chronicle includes photographs from across Pippin's career.

Donald Pippin's most notable creation was The Pocket Opera -- a musical theater company presenting operatic performances stripped to their essentials using libretti translated by Pippin into English. Opera is usually an opulent and very expensive spectacle. In 1987 he opined, "I think that the grandeur has been overemphasized at the expense of the human element." Pippin sought to bring the widest possible range of opera down to earth, available to everyone.  

Pippen: "I'm interested in what I'm doing, I love opera. I love music. I love words." (source: photo by Rob Cardin, Image March 29, 1987. Musicians and Performing Artists File)

The San Francisco Public Library has many of Donald Pippin's translated libretti in our collection. Many of his libretti have also been archived by Stanford University and are available online. A Pocketful of Wry is a delightful oral history where Pippin recounts his various musical adventures is also available online through the Online Archive of California.

Donald Pippin's musical activities were documented frequently in San Francisco newspapers. A search of the San Francisco Chronicle Current and Historical database produces 2,648 results and search of the San Francisco Examiner Historical databases produces another 1,820 results.  A large number of these are concert announcements.

One of the earliest mentions of Donald Pippin in the Chronicle is the story of how the legendary Arthur Fiedler (conductor of the Boston Pops and the San Francisco Symphony Pops summer concerts) discovered Pippin at the famed hungry i nightclub. The critic describes Pippin emerging from the milieu of a murky basement bar "which caters to many different kinds of bohemians and also to many different kinds of tourists who are anxious to seem how many different kinds of bohemians there are."

source: San Francisco Chronicle August 10, 1953

He played at the club five nights a week, constantly working up more and more classical repertoire. In his oral history he described the San Francisco Symphony Pops concert sneaking up on him, still unprepared.

The performance was set for early August, and here it was the middle of June and I had not even started learning the Rhapsody. Now, this is insane. Looking back, I can still get cold shudders. This is the recurrent nightmare of any performer: you're unprepared but you've still got a week to get ready, then a single day, then you're on the way to the auditorium, and you've still not had time to look at the music.

He added - and this underlies the daring behind all of his creative endeavors: 

Listen, there's nothing like ignorance. Ignorance is invaluable, irreplaceable. Yes, I was just stupid and ignorant enough to think I could. And so I did. 

Pippin is rightfully acclaimed for creating the Pocket Opera, but there may be no impresario who presented a wider range and repertoire of chamber music in San Francisco than him.  At the outset he was supported by his employer at the hungry i -- Enrico Banducci, a classical music lover himself.  Pippin remembered that he "always tried for quiet attentive audiences. Enrico Banducci was very helpful and used to rap knuckles when his patrons became too noisy."

His performance series started with him as a soloist, but he gradually added vocalists and instrumentalists that he accompanied. He moved through a number of North Beach venues after the hungry i -- the Purple Onion, Opus One, The New Broadway Theater, and for his longest run, The Old Spaghetti.  Pippin described the scene of that time:

At that time, nightlife was ebullient, and North Beach was the center of it. There were many places of interest, and people tended to make a night of it, hopping from one barroom to another--from the hungry i to The Purple Onion, from Vesuvio's to The Black Cat. Conversation flourished and interest in classical music was rampant. It was this lively carnival atmosphere of people out exploring that spilled over into our new venture.

Donald Pippin Presents Sunday Night Concerts (December 1971) - source: Musicians and Performing Artists File

The Pocket Opera group out of the chamber music of his Sunday Night Concerts at The Old Spaghetti Factory. A December 1971 performance that featured a piano four hands Sonata by Mozart also included a rendition of the one act opera The Marriage Broker (Женитьба / Zhenit'ba) by Modest Moussorgsky.  

These Sunday Night Concerts introduced a wide and eclectic range of chamber, vocal and operatic music.  The performances ranged from Medieval and Renaissance music (with period instruments), through the classics, to newly premiered compositions with composer in attendance.  James Cleghorn, the head of the Music Department and later the Art and Music Department of the San Francisco Public Library in the 1950s and 1960s, had a few compositions debut on a Saturday Night Concert at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

For those interested in further exploring the mark that Donald Pippin made upon San Francisco musical life we have files on Pippin himself, The Pocket Opera and The Old Spaghetti Factory. Ask at the Art, Music and Recreation Center reference desk.

Bibliography:

"Diva Talks To Donald Pippin," Diva: A Publication For Bay Area Operaphiles vol. 3, no. 8 (August 1975). [Art, Music and Recreation Center Musicians and Performing Artists Vertical File].

Hagan, R.H., "Fiedler Finds A Pianist In North Beach," San Francisco Chronicle (August 12, 1953).

Gereben, Janos, "RIP Donald Pippin: Pocket Opera Mourns The Death of Its Founder," San Francisco Classical Voice (July 12, 2021).

Kosman, Joshua, "Donald Pippin, Witty Populist on Behalf of Opera Dies at 95," San Francisco Chronicle (July 9, 2021).

Pippin, Donald. European Operetta in English, Volume 2 (Pocket Opera Press, 2017).

Pippin, Donald. French Opera in English, Volume 1 (Pocket Opera Press, 2017).

Pippin, Donald. Opera in English [4 volumes] (Pocket Opera Press, 2007-2008).

Pippin, Donald. A Pocketful of Wry: An Impresario's Life in San Francisco and the History of the Pocket Opera, 1950s-2001, interviews conducted by Caroline C. Crawford (Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, 2001).

Pippin, Donald. A Pocketful of Wry: An Oral History of Donald Pippin and Pocket Opera, based on tell-all interviews with Caroline Crawford (Pocket Opera, 2001?).

Reynolds, Richard, "Pocket of Talent: Donald Pippin Presents Grand Opera on a Small Scale," Image (March 29, 1987), 9-10. [Art, Music and Recreation Center Musicians and Performing Artists Vertical File].