THE MUSICAL LIBRARY AT ST. MARTIN'S AA 7.1 - , IT is
strange that a library of music and musical literature should have remained a desideratum in London to this very year ; not so strange, perhaps, considering our usage and habits, that a public desideratum should be supplied by an individual. For such an in- sHulltitution, actually established, the public is indebted to Mr. John ah.
The merit of this will be the better appreciated when we con- sider the previous attempts that have been made of the same kind. It is perhaps scarcely to-be expected that in any general library a special department will present great fulness ; and it might have passed without wonder if music had been represented in the col- lection of books at the British Museum only by the most dis- tinguished and salient productions. The collection there, how- ever, though it includes some valuable works, is ludicrously de- fective—not deserving, in fact, the name of a collection. You could only say that there are some music-books at the British Museum, in the same way that you may say there are some pic- tures in Trafalgar Square. The more valuable are chiefly in manuscript. An accumulation of music scores of some kind, we believe, exists in St. James's Palace ; but the access is so difficult that its existence is almost unknown. There is also a store of music in the University of Oxford, miserably kept, and not of well- understood value ; though that is believed to be not inconsiderable.
Taking the whole of Europe, even including the musical coun- tries, the same deficiency 'is apparent. Dr. Burney laments the neglect which collectors of libraries have shown respecting musical compositions. " There is not," he says, " a complete series of musical compositions by the best masters, from the earliest period of coun- terpoint to the present time to be found in any public or private library of Europe to which I have ever had access. Indeed, the collectors of books for royal, collegiate, or public libraries, seem never to have had an idea of forming a regular plan for making such a collection." The reason of this neglect is perhaps not dif- ficult to divine. Collectors of libraries form but a small portion of the literary world ; they have not often been devoted to art, sometimes not even truly devoted to literature. On the other hand, musicians as a class are not much addicted to literary or reflective pursuits. The combination of qualifies necessary, therefore, to form the collector of a musical li- brary, must depend on a conjunction not frequently afforded by the necessities of the case. Sometimes it has happened that the necessary coMbination of circumstances seems to have arisen ; but it has come to nothing. The Emperor Leopold, as Burney re- cords, began to form a musical library at Vienna, and the Elector of Bavaria instituted another at Munich in the last century ; but both have long been neglected, and when Burney wrote were already in a very confused and imperfect state. Formerly, says a private let- ter by a musical German, " there were existing two very dis- tinguished libraries, both formed by private individuals,—the one Mr. Polchaus's collection of Berlin, and the other Professor Thi- baut's at Heidelberg; but neither had been kept together after the death of the owner." At Bologna there is a library of con- siderable extent, formed by the celebrated Padre Martini ; but we believe the collection is chiefly limited to the ecclesiastical music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it would pro- bably be found rich in old theorists.
At present the most curious collection in Europe seems to be that of the Abbate Santini at Rome. There is also Kiesewetter's collection at Vienna ; perhaps the only one to vie with Santini's, but it is probably less complete than that, and many of its works haire been procured from the Italian. Signor Santini was literary executor to Baini, the late Chapelmaster to The Pope—ultimus Romanornm. The, collection comprises chiefly the works of the old masters, inclUding 'also the composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A large portion of the earlier compo- sitions have never been printed, but were scored by Santini from manuscripts in various Roman collections. The .permanency of Stuitini's collection, however, is threatened ; for various offers have been made to him to part with it, one from the British Museum, and he has shown no indisposition to do so for adequate induce- ments. The English negotiation failed, however, if we are not Mistaken, through its excessive parsimony ; the dilettanti ministers for taste, who regulate these affairs in our country, scarcely rating a whole musical collection as high as one of Greuze s equivocal pie- tures far less than the spurious Holbhin. The idea of forming a musical library in London is not now started for the first time : some years ago, Mr. Edward Taylor, Professor of Music in Gresham College, took steps to found such an institution, 'ultimately for the use of the public ; and we believe that the collection thus begun is going on. The first to be opened to the public however, is the Musical Library at St. Martin's Hall. As it stands, it is a private col- lection—that of Mr. John Hullah ; but it is one which has been the formation of many years, by a man who combines in an unusual degree theq.ualities necessary for the task : and, consistently with that spirit of liberality that has formed so large an element in Ins ordinary success, Mr. "[Wirth sets about the task of arranging the new institution so as to secure its utmost accessibility and utility for the public. It will not be a mere library of reference, such as most collectors would have stipulated for, from an overweening appreciation of property gathered by themselves ; but it is to be a lending library,—an in- cident still more necessary in the case of music, whose thorough comprehension requires instruments and actual practice, than in the case of ordinary literature. In many respects it is on the model of the London Library, only on terms that render it still more easy of access to the public; and the whole affair has been consummated with John Hi'lleh's vigorous promptitude. The public first hears of it in January ; it will be opened on the 1st of February.
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