Organ Music Treasures from the Gilmore Music Library

Introduction

Organ music has long been an important part of the musical scene at Yale: in campus chapels and concert halls, and in the curriculum of the School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music. Gustave Stoeckel, the first music professor at Yale, was an organist, as was Horatio Parker, the first dean of the School of Music. Many other distinguished organists have taught here, including Harry Benjamin Jepson, Hope Leroy Baumgartner, Frank Bozyan, Luther Noss, and Charles Krigbaum, as well as today’s organ faculty: Thomas Murray, Martin Jean, and Jeffrey Brillhart.

Of course, there have been even more student organists, and many of them have earned money as church musicians. The most famous example is Charles Ives (Class of 1898), who served as the music director of Center Church, on the New Haven Green. (One of Ives’s successors in that position is Kendall Crilly, a Yale alumnus who headed the Music Library from 1994 to 2007.)

Yale is home to several notable organs, including those at Woolsey Hall (Skinner), Battell Chapel (Holtkamp), Dwight Chapel (Beckerath), and Marquand Chapel (Taylor & Boody).

It should come as no surprise, then, that organ music plays a prominent part in the collections of the Gilmore Music Library. Yale acquired little music in its first 162 years, but that changed suddenly in 1873, with an extraordinary bequest from the American hymn composer, music educator, and editor Lowell Mason (1792–1872). Mason’s personal library contained a vast number of manuscripts and rare books and scores. The core of his collection had previously belonged Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770–1846), a German organist who had ties to the circle of J.S. Bach. As a result, Yale suddenly came into possession of a remarkable assemblage of organ music that is still of great inter­est to scholars.

In the ensuing century and a half, Yale has continued to acquire organ music (including individual manuscripts and rare printed scores), as well as books about organs, organists, and organ music. Organ music can also be found in many of our archival collections, such as the Charles Ives Papers and the Paul Hindemith Collection. Our exhibit is but a small selection from this abundance of treasures.

Organ Music Treasures from the Gilmore Music Library has been organized to coincide with the Northeast Regional Convention of the American Guild of Organists, in New Haven from June 28 to July 1, 2015. Many of the items included in the exhibit were selected at the recommendation of AGO members.

—Richard Boursy, Archivist