Musicology. P. Spitta. Series of c.52 autograph letters signed, to Friedrich Chrysander, 1883-1892

Musicology. Philipp Spitta

Series of c.52 autograph letters signed ("P"; "Ph. S."; "Philipp Spitta") to Friedrich Chrysander

covering many aspects of Spitta and Chrysander's academic collaboration, especially in connection with the founding and editing of the Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft, mentioning the Bachverein, Händel-Gesellschaft and the Musical Antiquarian Society, discussing various articles etc. concerning Handel, Schütz, Byrd, Bassani, Rinaldo di Capua and other composers, strongly criticising Guido Adler, also mentioning Rudorff, Herzogenberg, Joachim, Riemann, Kretschmar, Stumpf, and Stockhausen, and touching on many other matters

...Ich denke, Sie werden wohl aus London zurück sein, und sende Ihnen deshalb einliegendes Schriftstück Adlers. Ich mag nicht verhehlen, dass mir dasselbe mit seiner beschränkten Arroganz und Taktlosigkeit einen recht unangehmen Eindruck gemacht hat. Auf Adlers...Gerede einzugehen habe ich keine Lust...

c.113 pages in all, various sizes, 17 letters on postcards, many letters with autograph envelopes, with a printed programme of the Königliche Hochschule für Musik for the concert on 1 July 1885 celebrating the music of Schütz Händel and Bach, one 6-page autograph document by Guido Adler (""2. Ergänzung zum Quartelbericht"), Berlin and Bergedorf, 1883-1892

together with c.20 autograph letters to Spitta from other correspondents, including Chrysander (2), Max Planck (2: concerning an article of his - 'Die natürliche Stimmung in der modernen Vokalmusik' - in the Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft, 3 pages in all, oblong 8vo, Berlin, 23 and 31 October 1893), Karl Held, Rudolf Schwartz (2), Hermann Deiters, Carl Stumpf (3), and Rudolf Schlösser, Copenhagen, Leipzig, and elsewhere, 1869-1894 

A highly detailed and revealing correspondence of one colossus of nineteenth-century German musicology to another. The short-lived but influential quarterly Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft, whose contents are the subject of many of the letters here, was founded in 1885 by Spitta with Chrysander and Guido Adler.

LITERATURE

TNG, v, pp.816-817