OVER 15,000 SCORES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 496, 24 December 1948, Page 7

OVER 15,000 SCORES

Complex Filing System at NZBS Music Library

VER 15,000 __ individual musical scores, ranging from full symphonies to popular dance songs, are stacked on shelves and in steel filing cabinets in a large room of the old 2YA studios in®Wellington. These works, some in bound, printed volumes several inches thick, some in manuscript, and a few (non-copyright works) in photostat form, comprise the NZBS music library, which must be one of the most comprehensive and best classified of its kind in this part of the world. For the past six months the task of filing, cataloguing, and triple-indexing these scores has been carried out by a team of girls under the direction of the music librarian, Seth Harris. The bulk of the work has just been completed, and in its re-organised state the library should more conveniently meet the broadcasting needs of the 23 stations of the NZBS, scattered up and down the country. Working out a suitable method of classification proved difficult at first, for the only precedents the librarian could work on were the systems used in such

overseas libraries as the United States Federal Library of Congress. But whereas these libraries are used mainly for reference purposes, the NZBS music library is a lending library-although its lending of scores does not extend beyond the various stations of the NZBS itself, and those artists giving broadcast performances. The main requirements in classification were therefore rapidity and ease of access, and a special system of indexing adapted to broadcasting needs. The music was finally indexed under the composer’s name, the title of the work, and thirdly, under an elaborate classification according to instrumentation, which was based on the L. R. McColvin system. Three Main Groups This system, which is fitted to meet the requests for scores whi may come in from any of the 23 stations of the NZBS, divides the music up according to whether it is scored for salon orchestra, string quartet, ’cello solo, piano duo, vocal groups, and so on. The reason for this is that stations will often not specify any particular composer when requesting music. They may simply ask

for music from, say, the modern period, suitable for a half-hour recital by a local chamber orchestra. Or they may ask for a bracket of songs suitable for light tenor voice with piano accompaniment. The music is grouped into three main kinds. Orchestral music forms the bulk of the library, and it is subdivided into scores for symphony orchestra, full orchestra (with piano conductor score), small orchestra, chamber orchestra, salon orchestra, string orchestra, and special arrangements. Vocal compositions are subdivided into songs (solo, duo, trio; quartets, song cycles, song albums, etc.), stage works (opera, operetta, musical comedy), and choral works (oratorio, cantata, etc.).

Instrumental music is- subdivided into piano duds and solos, violin, viola, ’cello, and woodwind solos, and instrumental duos, trios, quartets, quintets, and so on, As every musician knows, orchestral works are scored individually for each member of the orchestra, and with many of these scores coming from foreign publishers, the library assistants need to know their musical terminology inanything up to five different languages. The word cymbals, for instance, may appear on the score as cymbales, schale, becken, piatti, or cinelli, Hired Scores The NZBS library keeps in close ‘touch with the libraries of other broadcasting services in the Commonwealth, and if necessary it can get music on loan from them within a very short period. Sometimes when it is not possible to buy or borrow a work, it can be hired direct ffom the publishers, or, in tare instances, from the composer (or his agent) himself. In this way the National Orchestra was recently able to give performances of a relatively new

work, Kabalevsky’s Symphony No. 2, Opus 15. Immediately after the final performance the score was returned to the agency in London from which it was obtained. Until the formation of. the Nationa Orchestra in 1946 the NZBS musi library was a relatively*small one, I a few months, however, the Orchestra’ requirements caused the library to ex pand so rapidly that the old classifica tion system became unwieldy. The wor of re-classification was started by A. D H. Heenan, who was then the libraria and it-has been virtually completed b Mr. Harris, his successor. A special feature of the library is th number of manuscript scores it contain written by a local orchestrator and ar ranger, Thomas Gray. "These" arrang ments are often required when no exist ing or available scoring of a particula work is’ suited to the number of instru ments wanting to play it in a loc broadcast. They are a valuable addi tion to the thousands of ‘other scor that the library has stacked on i shelves. *