The preservation of manuscripts

[Sydney Grew]

All men are - for the moment and as far as I know - mortal - but what about their works? So much music - upon which its composers have in many cases expended years of labour - has been lost over the passage of time. I suppose this loss mostly happens because pieces have not been published.

In the catalogue of even a well-known composer such as Stanford many items are marked "unperformed and unpublished" - but presumably in his case they are not actually lost.

This question of preservation of manuscripts is likely to become more important in the near future, as computer scanning and computer-generated performance of everything on demand becomes feasible.

So my question is: what steps should an unsung composer take, while still living, to ensure that his œuvre remains available to later generations? Bundle it all up and send it to the nearest large library perhaps? But there is no guarantee that the library would accept it; and even if they did, many of to-day's libraries are capable of having a "tidy up" after a few years and tipping it out! So send it to six libraries . . .

Or are there already institutes somewhere devoted to the preservation of unsung composers' manuscripts?

[Gareth Vaughan]

Whatever he/she does it should not be sent to the British Library. It will instantly become inaccesible to most scholars, unless it is accompanied by a letter giving permission for MSS to be photocopied for purposes of performance or study upon request.
The Fleisher Collection in the Free Library of Philadelphia has the resources (and staff) to look after MSS properly. Otherwise, the RCM has much to recommend it, or the university library of the town or city in which the composer resides. In each case there should be accompanying paperwork to state who the copyright holder is and how they may be contacted in the event that copies are requested or permission for a performance is sought.

[Sydney Grew]

Many thanks for those useful tips and advice! It seems best, then, for a composer to get all the conditions of acceptance and storage signed and sealed well in advance of his (or her) expected expiry. . . .

[MikeW]

I've spoken to various librarians and archivists about this sort of thing since I've had to send family archives of historical note to such institutions.

I would say most of them are so underfunded and understaffed that they cannot cope with the influx of material even from "sung" individuals in various fields.

If composers want manuscripts to be recorded then they should make sure they are organised and digitised, and perhaps already submitted to volunteer-run bodies like IMSLP.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes, I should have said, on no account send them to "your local town or county library". Such places have never had adequate resources (human or otherwise) to deal with such bequests. Witness the Sacheverell Coke collection in Chesterfield (uncatalogued until recently - and the Emanuel Moor archive in the Westminster Music Library at Victoria, uncatalogued and occupying a wall of dusty drawers in the basement).
Uploading them to IMSLP is certainly a good idea. Sadly, American or German libraries seem to be much better resourced than those in the UK.