Title: Gottfried Galston Music Collection and The Galston-Busoni Archive

Date/Date Range :   undated

Extent: 40.5 linear feet

Abstract:

The Library of the University of Tennessee is most fortunate to have received the Galston-Busoni Archive and the Galston Music Collection, a unique and valuable collection of music materials. The gift from Mrs. Helen Galston Tibbe of Menlo Park, California was originally a private collection amassed by her late husband, the Austrian pianist Gottfried Galston. The collection consists of 27 boxes of manuscripts (musical and literary), letters, programs, newspaper clippings, and rare musical scores by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Brahms, to list a few.

Call number: MS-1072

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

This collection was a gift of Mrs. Helen Galston Tibbe.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], Gottfried Galston Music Collection and The Galston-Busoni Archive, MS-1072. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of 27 boxes divided into three series: Musical Scores; Miniature Scores; and Other Papers.

Gottfried Galston, born in Vienna in 1879, completed his studies under Schenner at the Vienna Conservatory at the age of fifteen and then became a pupil of Theodore Leschetizky with whom he remained for five years. Galston studied theory, counterpoint, and composition with Jadassohn and Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory. It was in Leipzig in 1900 that Galston made his piano debut. In 1903, he was appointed Professor at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin where he taught until 1907.

In that year he began his famous Cycle Concert, a series of five recitals devoted to the great masters Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Bach, and Brahms, which gave him great prominence in the performance world. At this time Galston also received significant honors, the title of Professor Extraordinary at the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg and an invitation to perform at the Conservatory in Paris without the customary written application. The Conservatory cast a silver medal for him in memory of his outstanding success there; he was honored by another request performance and silver medal in 1909. Gottfried Galston concretized extensively throughout Europe, Australia, and New Zealand; he toured Russia eleven times, the last in 1926; during 1912-1913 season, he made his first appearance in the United States.

In 1927, Galston settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught at the St. Louis Institute of Music. He resided in St. Louis until his death in 1950.

The Italian-born pianist, composer, and conductor, Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni was born April 1, 1866, in Empoli, Italy. He performed as a child prodigy at the piano beginning at the age of nine, although he had not studied with any well-known teacher at that time. At the age of fifteen, he made a successful concert tour in Italy; he became a member of the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna, and at Florence a gold medal was struck in his honor. His studies in composition began with Wilhelm Meyer-Remy at Graz and continued at the Leipzig Conservatory beginning in 1886. From 1899 to 1920 he alternated extensive concert tours with teaching piano at the Helsingfors and Moscow Conservatories, giving advanced classes for pianists at Weimar, and directing the Lieceo Musicale of Bologna.

In the early 1900s, Busoni established his fame as a pianist. Although he had never heard Franz Liszt perform, Busoni was greatly influenced by the music of Liszt and performed many of his works. In 1911, he celebrated the centenary of Liszt's birth with a remarkable series of six Liszt recitals. Busoni's lifelong devotion to Liszt might be considered merely the admiration of the virtuoso pianist for his famous predecessor, but it was probably more than that since Liszt was clearly a great influence on Busoni's compositions as well. In the manner of Liszt, Busoni composed a number of transcriptions for solo piano in a virtuoso, bravura style.

For much of his life, Busoni made Berlin the center of his European concert tours. There he not only appeared as a virtuoso at the piano, but conducted orchestral concerts in which he introduced many contemporary compositions. After a sojourn in America, where he taught at the New England Conservatory, and a self-imposed exile in Switzerland during World War I, Busoni returned to Berlin in the autumn of 1920. At this time, Busoni was finally accepted as a composer of merit and was appointed to a chair composition at the Academy of the Arts. In these last years his health rarely allowed him to perform in public, but he continued to devote himself to composing.

Busoni was an intellectual who wrote his own opera libretti as well as essays on the philosophy and aesthetics of music; he was a virtuoso pianist who possessed impressive technical skill; he was a conductor who supported the new composers of his day by programming unknown works; he was a composer of a wide range of works for piano, voice, orchestra, organ, chamber ensembles, and the stage.

(Excerpt from Pauline Shaw Bayne's book: The Gottfried Galston Music Collection and the Galston-Busoni Archive )

The two pianists, Ferruccio Busoni and Gottfried Galston, encountered each other many times during their concert careers and formed a mentor-protégé relationship. Galston lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1927; Busoni returned there in 1920 and stayed until his death in 1924. During this four-year period, the two had a chance to cement their friendship to the point that Galston made almost daily visits to Busoni during the illness of his last year. These years of communication between the two men, dating from around 1900 until 1924, are documented in their correspondence, their dedication of compositions to each other, and the collection of Busoni memorabilia which Galston gathered together though the years.

The Galston-Busoni Archive includes manuscripts (musical and literary), letters, photographs, programs, newspaper clippings, and other items of memorabilia documenting the lives and careers of both Gottfried Galston and Ferruccio Busoni. These materials were collected by Galston and cover a period from 1897 to 1927. Included in the Busoni memorabilia are sixteen musical manuscripts and four literary manuscripts, as well as an extensive collection of letters and photographs. Some items in the collection of Galston memorabilia are truly unusual, such as the two silver medals awarded to Galston for his performances at the Paris Conservatory in 1907 and 1909, and the plaster casts of the hands of four pianists-Anton Rubenstein, Frederic Chopin, Ferruccio Busoni, and Gottfried Galston. Other items of significance to students of piano and music history are the Studienbuch, Galston's musical and literary record of his five historical programs of Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, and Chopin, and his manuscript edition of 140 of Johann Sebastian Bach's works, called Helen Galston's Klavierbuchlein. Prepared during last years of his life, this work represents the culmination of Galston's lifelong devotion to the music of Bach.

The Galston Music Collection consists of about 1500 scores for piano (including some for two pianos and piano with orchestra), plus 102 miniature scores and thirty-one books on musical subjects. The large collection of piano musical covers the major repertoire for virtuoso pianists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including many first editions of music by composers of this period. Heavily emphasized are the works of Bach, Liszt and Busoni, with both original works for piano and transcriptions by Liszt and Busoni. (Excerpt from Pauline Shaw Bayne's book: The Gottfried Galston Music Collection and the Galston-Busoni Archive )

Important Note - Refer to the book The Gottfried Galston Music Collection and the Galston-Busoni Archive by Pauline Shaw Bayne for a complete description of the collection's contents.

• Busoni, Ferruccio, 1866-1924.
• Galston, Gottfried, 1879-1950.
• Composers -- Germany.
• Composers -- Italy.