Horace Wadham Nicholl 1848-1922

[edurban]

I gave Mary Louise Boehm several Nicholl piano works but don't remember her programming any of them with the exception of the Nocturne in C, published in St Louis in 1870.   She was fond of this piece and performed it several times.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I assume the piano concerto is lost.

[tpaloj]

I assume the piano concerto is lost.

The American Piano Concerto Compendium (by William Phemister) has an entry for Nicholl's concerto. It's listed as "MS: NYPL". Perhaps it can still be found there...?

[edurban]

The full score and a 2 piano reduction are most definitely at nypl, lincoln center.

[edurban]

From a William Sherwood letter (Sherwood played the concerto twice in Pittsburgh in 1888):    "...the concerto of [Nicholl's] which I once learned is in all respects the equal of any modern concerto I have yet heard since Chopin and Schumann.  It is a work of the highest rank among modern compositions of its class.  My assertion that it is worthy of Bach or Brahms is founded upon a thorough study of its contents, which, both for the beauty and dignity of its themes, and their masterly development, as well as the artistic  structure of the composition, fully justifies such a statement.  When I first examined the concerto, I could see it was a work written by a man of wonderful technical skill, and after weighing its difficulties decided to seriously study the work.  I have discovered the mine of wealth it embraces. If any fault can be found ...it is because of its too sustained elevation and its coherent qualities, for the subjects are so welded together, entwined and interwoven, and each moment is so gradually and yet interestingly developed, that the subjects (or motives) are never lost sight of, on which account there are no resting places as in works of the same character  which are more rhapsodic.  Therefore, after seriously studying the concerto in all its aspects, I do not hesitate to boldly and openly affirm that it is a truly great work, worthy, I may repeat, of Bach or Brahms."

[eschiss1]

Several works (mostly organ works, but also the cello sonata Op.13) on IMSLP, as people have no doubt noticed, where he shows up as often as an editor as a composer.

[Gareth Vaughan]

The full score and a 2 piano reduction are most definitely at nypl, lincoln center.

This is the link I have just received from a librarian at NYPL to their collection of Nicholl mss - the same as I accessed on their own site a couple of days ago! They say this is all they have.
https://www.nypl.org/research/collections/shared-collection-catalog/search?q=Nicholl%2C%20H.%20W.%20(Horace%20Wadham)%2C%201848-1922.
I don't think they've bothered to look at all. Can you help, edurban?

[edurban]

I will try to go over there next Monday.  I'll also look through my notes for some call numbers.  Part of the problem may be that when Mrs Nicholl gave her late husband's manuscripts, scrapbooks etc to nypl in the 20s, they were bound (yoiks!) and eventually assigned to the research division.  Then most were moved to the Americana Collection.  Several of the scores, the piano concerto included, are very fragile and need to be disbound, but the paper is so fragile that I always avoided the concerto as i was afraid of damaging it, with paper loss and actual loss of musical material a real possibility.  I have seldom been to the music division in the last 20 years, so i imagine much is changed.  In the 80s i copied many things by hand...a set of parts for the string quartet, the first movement of the piano trio, the big Prelude and Double Fugue for piano "For Love is Strong as Death" which I hoped MLB would play (she never did).  Oi.  David.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Thanks very much, David. Greatly appreciated.

[tpaloj]

Some time has passed, so I thought to ask... did you happen to be able to follow up on the leads re: Nicholl's Piano Concerto, David...?

[edurban]

I've spent the last 2 Monday afternoons at nypl, lincoln center with mixed results.  The first week they couldn't find the Nicholl Collection at all...just the 2 boxes already mentioned: one contains photocopies of Nicholl's scrapbooks and the other contains a set of individual orchestra parts for the Second Symphony.  Later that evening a librarian emailed me the hopeful news that they had found the collection.  It had never made it into the online catalogue, but could still be found in the large black volumes (no. 27 to be precise) of what is known as the Dictionary Catalogue.  The Nicholl manuscripts had not been sent to offsite storage in New Jersey (like the 2 boxes) but were actually only yards away from the Special Collections reading room where I was. I returned last Monday, now armed with call letters, and requested the 2piano score and the full score.  Alas. The 2 piano score appeared, but not the full score.  The 'new' page could not find it.  So they started a search, and promised to get back to me.  So far, no news.  Sorry there is nothing more positive to report at the moment.  Oddly, I thought, they had no problem with me photographing the ms with the somewhat limited capacity of my iphone...  best, David

[Gareth Vaughan]

Dear David
Thank you so very much for your diligence and persistence. One wonders how many other items in other libraries may have been "lost" in this way. Let us hope the full score of the PC materialises. Once again, thanks for your help.
Gareth

[Gareth Vaughan]

Forgive this digression, but it illustrates my concern. There is a piece for violin and piano (it's supposed to exist in a version for violin and orchestra too, but I can't seem to find a copy of that) by Litolff called "Reve d'un captif". Browsing WorldCat, I noticed the University of Iowa has a microfilm copy, described in their catalogue data as having been taken from the original in the Fleisher Collection. And Ted Blair in his dissertation on Litolff (1962 I think) gives Fleisher as one of the locations. However, Fleisher don't list it at all. Needles in haystack?!!!

[edurban]

Needles in the library stacks...

[Gareth Vaughan]

Quite so. Ha, ha!