Theodore M. Finney:
An Inventory of Music Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
| Creator: | Finney, Theodore M. | |
| Title | Theodore M. Finney Music Manuscript Collection | |
| Dates: | 1700-1850 | |
| Extent: | 53 bound volumes, 3 document cases (5.04 linear feet) | |
| Abstract: | The collection consists primarily of music manuscripts in English, Italian, French, and German. | |
| Call Number: | Manuscript Collection MS-01388 | |
| Language: | English. |
| Access | Open for research |
Administrative Information
| Acquisition | Purchase, 1970 | |
| Processed by | Dell Hollingsworth, 1998 |
| Repository: |
Biographical Sketch
| Theodore Mitchell Finney, American musicologist and educator, was born in Fayette, Iowa, on March 14, 1902. He studied at the University of Minnesota (B.A. 1924), the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, and the University of Pittsburgh, earning his Master of Letters degree there in 1938. He taught at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, from 1925 to 1932 and was supervisor of music for the public schools in Council Bluffs, Iowa, from 1933 to 1936; during that time he was also a lecturer at the Smith College Summer School. From 1936 to 1968 he was professor and head of the music department at the University of Pittsburgh. | ||
| Finney retired in 1968 and became curator of the Warrington Collection of Hymnology at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His career encompassed a wide range of musical interests including performance, research, music education, and librarianship. He played violin in the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1923 to 1925, and was also active as a choral conductor, founding the Heinz Chapel Choir at the University of Pittsburgh in 1939. He died in Pittsburgh on May 19, 1978. He was the brother of composer Ross Lee Finney. | ||
| Finney's publications include A History of Music (New York, 1935, 1947), Hearing Music (New York, 1941), We Have Made Music (Pittsburgh, 1955), and A Union Catalogue of Music and Books on Music Printed Before 1801 in Pittsburgh Libraries (Pittsburgh, 1959, 1963). He also served as editor for J. Warrington's Short Titles of Books Relating to or Illustrating the History and Practice of Psalmody in the United States, 1620-1820 (Pittsburgh, 1970). | ||
Scope and Contents
| The collection consists of 53 bound volumes and 3 document cases of music manuscripts, primarily English, Italian, French, and German, dating from around 1700 to the middle of the 19th century. In addition, there is a manuscript catalog of an unidentified private music library, dated 1816 (Finney 26). Collected and bound by various former owners, the music manuscripts include anthems, glees, sacred and secular songs, masses, opera arias, chamber music, didactic works, and music for keyboard, harp, guitar, and mandolin. The materials were purchased from Finney himself, and his handwritten notes on various items are in the collection files. The order and numbering of the volumes are Finney's. | ||
| Among the major composers represented are Tallis, Purcell, Corelli, Handel, J. C. Bach, and Haydn. (There is an index of composers, authors, copyists, and former owners at the end of the finding aid.) For the most part the manuscripts are the work of copyists, but holographs include William Boyce's arrangement in full score of Purcell's Te Deum & Jubilate, Samuel Wesley's Magnificat and Carmen Funebre, Adalbert Gyrowetz's piano trio op. 22, and possibly Maurice Greene's Te Deum. Also among the more important items are several volumes of English sacred music and a full score for Handel's Coronation Anthems in the hands of Handel's principal copyists, bearing the bookplate of the Oxford Musical Society (where Handel conducted a performance of the work). | ||
| The Finney collection has been cataloged by staff at Harvard University as part of their work with RISM A/II, a joint international project to locate and catalog music manuscripts dating from 1600 to ca. 1825. Detailed catalog records describing the Finney manuscripts are accessible on the World Wide Web at: http://www.rism.harvard.edu/rism/DB.html. See the Appendix for an overview of the RISM Project and for information on how to search online for Finney manuscripts. | ||
| Other early music manuscripts collected by Finney are housed at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and the Music Library at UCLA. Printed scores, books, and other materials once belonging to Finney are in the Music Library of the University of Pittsburgh (which is named after him) and the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. | ||
| In the volume list which follows, titles in quotation marks are taken from the manuscripts themselves; other information has been supplied by the cataloger. | ||
Index Terms
Persons |
||
| Abel, Karl Friedrich, 1723-1787 | ||
| Anfossi, Pasquale, 1727-1797 | ||
| Arne, Michael, 1741?-1786 | ||
| Arne, Thomas Augustine, 1710-1778 | ||
| Arnold, Samuel, 1740-1802 | ||
| Bach, Johann Christian, 1735-1782 | ||
| Beehoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827 | ||
| Boccherini, Luigi, 1743-1805 | ||
| Boyce, William, 1711-1779 | ||
| Byrd, William, 1542 or 3-1623 | ||
| Clarke, Jeremiah, 1669?-1707 | ||
| Corelli, Arcangelo, 1653-1713 | ||
| Corri, Domenico, 1746-1825 | ||
| Croft, William, 1678-1727 | ||
| Dibdin, Charles, 1745-1814 | ||
| East, Michael, ca. 1580-ca. 1640 | ||
| Eccles, John, ca. 1668-1735 | ||
| Galuppi, Baldassare, 1706-1785 | ||
| Geminiani, Francesco, ca. 1680-1762 | ||
| Gibbons, Orlando, 1583-1625 | ||
| Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Ritter von, 1714-1787 | ||
| Greene, Maurice, 1696-1755 | ||
| Grétry, André Ernest Modeste, 1741-1813 | ||
| Gyrowetz, Adalbert, 1763-1850 | ||
| Handel, George Frideric, 1685-1759 | ||
| Hasse, Johann Adolf, 1699-1783 | ||
| Haydn, Joseph, 1732-1809 | ||
| Hook, Mr. (James), 1746-1827 | ||
| Jommelli, Nicolò, 1714-1774 | ||
| Kelly, Michael, 1762-1826 | ||
| Lawes, William, 1602-1645 | ||
| Linley, Thomas, 1756-1778 | ||
| Marcello, Benedetto, 1686-1739 | ||
| Martini, Johann Paul Aegidius, 1741-1816 | ||
| Moore, Thomas, 1779-1852 | ||
| Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791 | ||
| Pachelbel, Carl Theodor, 1690-1750 | ||
| Paisiello, Giovanni, 1740-1816 | ||
| Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 1710-1736 | ||
| Philidor, F.D. (François Danican), 1726-1795 | ||
| Pleyel, Ignaz, 1757-1831 | ||
| Purcell, Henry, 1659-1695 | ||
| Rameau, Jean Philippe, 1683-1764 | ||
| Rossini, Gioacchino, 1792-1868 | ||
| Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778 | ||
| Salieri, Antonio, 1750-1825 | ||
| Scarlatti, Domenico, 1685-1757 | ||
| Shield, William, 1748-1829 | ||
| Stanley, John, 1712-1786 | ||
| Stevenson, John Andrew, 1761-1833 | ||
| Storace, Stephen, 1763-1796 | ||
| Tallis, Thomas, 1505(ca.)-1585 | ||
| Webbe, Samuel, 1740-1816 | ||
| Weelkes, Thomas, 1575(ca.)-1623 | ||
| Wesley, Samuel, 1766-1837 | ||
| Wise, Michael, 1646?-1687 | ||
Subjects |
||
| Music--Manuscripts | ||
| Vocal music | ||
| Instrumental music | ||
| Keyboard instrument music | ||
Document Types |
||
| Scores | ||
| Songs | ||