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Damrosch - Tee Van Collection

Processed by the Music Division of the Library of Congress

Music Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2007

Finding Aid encoded by Library of Congress Music Division, 2007

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu007002

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Personal Names

Administrative Information

Provenance

Accruals

Processing History

Copyright Status

Restrictions

Preferred Citation

Introduction

Biographical Sketch

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Damrosch - Tee Van collection

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by personal names, and listed alphabetically therein.

Personal Names

Administrative Information

Provenance

Gift; Helen Tee Van, daughter of Frank Damrosch; 1972.

Accruals

No further accruals are expected.

Processing History

The Damrosch - Tee Van Collection was processed in 1994 by Wilda Heiss with assistance from Margaret Collins. The original finding aid was prepared with Corel WordPerfect 5.1. In 2007 the Damrosch - Tee Van Collection finding aid was coded for EAD format by Michael A. Ferrando.

Copyright Status

The status of copyright on the materials of the Damrosch - Tee Van collection is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).

Restrictions

Certain restrictions to use or copying of materials may apply.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: container number, the Damrosch - Tee Van collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Introduction

The materials in the Damrosch-Tee Van Collection were acquired by the Library of Congress as a gift of Helen Tee Van, daughter of Frank Damrosch, in 1972. The collection contains the papers of Frank and Leopold Damrosch and their families.

Certain restrictions as to the use or copying of the materials in this collection may apply.

Biographical Sketch

The Damrosch family immigrated to America from Breslau, Germany in 1871. Leopold Damrosch (1832-1885), the family patriarch, was a violinist, conductor, and composer who was educated in Posen, his native city, and in Berlin. In 1857, Franz Liszt appointed him lead violinist in the court orchestra at Weimar. While there, he married the singer Helene von Heimburg. In 1860, he toured with Hans von Bülow and Karl Tausig and, in 1862, organized the Breslau Philharmonic Society. He came to America in 1871 to conduct the Arion Society, a men's choral group. In 1873, he founded the Oratorio Society of New York and, in 1878, the Symphony Society of New York. He introduced Wagner's operas, Berlioz's Damnation of Faust, and other large choral works to New York audiences; many of these were American premieres. In 1880, Columbia College conferred on him the Doctor of Music degree. During the 1884-85 season, he became a manager of the Metropolitan Opera and presented a "German" season which consisted primarily of German operas and some Italian operas sung in German. Six days before the end of the season, he died and his son, Walter, and the chorusmaster, John Lund, conducted the remaining performances. Walter conducted the tour of the Damrosch Grand Opera Company which followed the Metropolitan Opera season.

Frank Damrosch (1859-1937), the oldest son of Leopold and Helene, was a conductor and teacher. He began his musical studies as a child in Breslau and continued them in New York City. Later, he left City College and found work in various non-musical jobs. In 1879, he went to Denver, Colorado to see what business opportunities existed there; eventually, he abandoned the business world and devoted himself to music. He became conductor of the Denver Chorus Club, supervisor of music in public schools, and organist and choir director for several churches and a synagogue. After Leopold's death in 1885, he returned to New York City and served as conductor of the Newark Harmonic Society and chorus master and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera until 1891. In 1892, he organized and conducted the People's Choral Union for which he published a Popular Method of Sight Singing. He founded and conducted the Musical Art Society of New York, a small professional chorus. From 1897 to 1905 he was supervisor of music in the New York City public schools. He succeeded his brother Walter as conductor of the Oratorio Society from 1898-1912. In 1904, he received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University. In 1905, he founded the Institute of Musical Art and was its director until 1926, when it merged with the Juilliard Graduate School to become the Juilliard School of Music of which he served as dean until 1933.

Wilda Heiss, Music Specialist
Margaret Collins, Library Technician,
July 1994

Scope and Content Note

The Damrosch-Tee Van Collection consists of the papers of Frank and Leopold Damrosch and their families. The date span of the collection is 1856-1969, with the bulk of the materials dating from the 1870s to the 1930s. The collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, writings, manuscript and printed music, financial and legal papers, programs, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs.

Included in the collection is a series of biographical materials that relate to various Damrosch family members, chiefly Frank and Leopold Damrosch, and consists of printed articles, manuscript notes, and transcripts of interviews. One item of interest is an autobiographical essay written by Leopold Damrosch as a graduation thesis from the high school at Posen.

The papers of Leopold Damrosch consist of correspondence (including a copy of a letter from Liszt,) a few examples of writings, four scores (including Leopold Damrosch's piano-vocal arrangement of the Berlioz Requiem), programs for concerts he conducted and attended, a scrapbook of clippings, and a few other miscellaneous items. This section of the collection is quite small, due in part to a fire in 1887 that destroyed many of Leopold's papers, including much of his correspondence with Liszt, Wagner, von Bülow, and others. Despite this fact, the collection contains important information on Leopold Damrosch.

A large part of the collection consists of the papers of Frank Damrosch and other Damrosch family members. The correspondence comprises several hundred letters, with some of the more important correspondents being Harold Bauer, Andrew Carnegie, Edward Elgar, Percy Grainger, Josef Hofmann, Gustav Mahler, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Many of the letters of Frank Damrosch to his family were destroyed in the 1887 fire, mentioned above; there are, however, a long series of letters to his wife Hetty from Europe in 1891. Any letters to or from correspondents who wrote to both Frank Damrosch and other family members are filed together with Frank's correspondence.

The correspondence of other Damrosch family includes letters to and from family members. Included are letters from Georges Barrère, Teresa Carreño, Pablo Casals, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek (regarding John Tee Van's zoo pandas), and John D. Rockefeller. Many of these are simply condolence letters received after Frank Damrosch's death while others reveal more familiar relationships.

The remainder of the papers of Frank Damrosch and other Damrosch family include manuscript and typescript copies of Frank Damrosch's book Some Essentials in the Teaching of Music; a copy of the libretto for Walter Damrosch's The Scarlet Letter; several printed editions of Frank Damrosch's choral music; programs for concerts the Damrosch family attended or that Frank conducted; original artwork by Frank Damrosch; photographs, and other family memorabilia. Also included are papers of the Institute of Musical Art, the music school which Frank Damrosch founded in 1905. This part of the collection includes catalogs, programs, and other publications produced by that institution.

Organization of the Damrosch - Tee Van collection

The Damrosch - Tee Van collection is organized in 3 series:

• Biographical materials
• Papers of Leopold Damrosch
• Papers of Frank Damrosch and other Damrosch family

Container List