Exhibitions
Introduction
Exhibitions based on the music collections of Cambridge University Library are permanently accessible to during the library's opening times.
Library readers who are members of the University are welcome to bring up to two visitors at a time to see exhibitions. Members of the public who do not hold Library readers' tickets may be able to make an appointment with the Music Department to gain access to the exhibition area. For further information contact the Music Department.
The display cases can be found just outside and behind the entrance of the Anderson Room, on South Front 1 and Corridor, and on the South Wing 1 Corridor.
Find out more about other exhibitions at the University Library on the exhibitions page.
The current exhibition:
14 May 2013 to 31 August 2013
The most helpful people on earth : Celebrating 60 years of the UK and Ireland Branch of the International Association of Music Libraries
The UK and Ireland Branch of the International Association of Music Libraries is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee this year. This exhibition looks at the group of distinguished music librarians who founded the Branch back in 1953 and presents a snapshot of its wide-ranging activities supporting music librarians and other library staff, including training courses, resource-mapping programmes and online directories of performance materials.
Read the curators' blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Anna Pensaert and Susi Woodhouse
Previous exhibitions:
4 February 2013 to 10 May 2013
In Search of the Erhu
The erhu epitomises Chinese music, but its origins are obscure. This exhibition uses rare texts from the Library's rich holdings of Chinese and Manchu books to reveal hitherto unknown aspects of the history of the erhu, and includes an antique instrument which can be heard playing on the curator's blog post.
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Colin Huehns (Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music)
23 Oct 2012 to 23 Jan 2013
Inspired by Dickens : Celebrating Charles Dickens' bicentenary (1812-1870).
This exhibition looks at musical works that have been inspired by Dickens' novels.
It includes copies of music published within Dickens' lifetime such as the All the year round galop,
and a copy of a manuscript of incidental music for a radio play based on The Chimes. There
are also later musicals including an unusual take on Oliver Twist....
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Margaret Jones
29 Jun 2012 to 12 Oct 2012
Light fantastic: music and the Crystal Palace
Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, built for the Great Exhibition of 1851, played an important role in British musical life right up until 1936. This exhibition presents a selection from the riches of the UL's collections highlighting the great Handel Triennial Festivals, the immensely popular Saturday concerts and music inspired by the Palace itself.
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Susi Woodhouse
17 Jan 2012 to 16 Jun 2012
Music collectors
To continue on the theme of the “Shelf lives” exhibition, the music department is displaying items from two further music collectors:
treatises and scores relating to the thorough-bass from the F.T. Arnold
bequest and music scores from the F.A. Booth collection.
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Anna Pensaert
14 Oct 2011 to 13 Jan 2012
Liszt's Visits to England
Liszt was born two hundred years ago on 22 October 1811 in Raiding, Hungary. Throughout his life he travelled extensively and came on three occasions to England: as a child, as a young virtuoso and in the last year of his life, 1886. The display cases contain contemporary scores of works he played and some accounts and reviews of these visits.
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Clive Simmonds
22 June 2011 to 14 Oct 2011
Staging Life : for Gian Carlo Menotti
Celebrating what would have been Gian Carlo Menotti's centenary, this exhibition focuses specifically on his stage works. Works like The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois (1947) and Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) - the first television opera - captured the post-war US-american Zeitgeist. The display cases will feature also glimpses at the stage settings of these works.
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Clemens Gresser
14 March 2011 to 15 June 2011
Music for a Royal Wedding
This exhibition includes an arrangement of the music used for the marriage of Margaret Tudor to James IV of Scotland along with music that has become popular in wider society following fashions set by the royals. There's also a puzzling item with connections to Wagner's Bridal March.
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Margaret Jones
4 October 2010 to 11 March 2011
THOMAS ARNE 1710-1778:
a celebration for Arne's tricentenary
The display cases show a selection of Arne's music, a Victorian satire on Rule Britannia, an illustration of a riot that took place during his most popular opera, Artaxerxes, and a review of a revival of the same opera.
[Image to the right is title page of By dimpl'd brook and fountain
and is item no. 69 in volume MR290.a.75.103]
Read the curator's blog post for this exhibition
Curated by: Margaret Jones
11 May to 2 October 2010
A night to remember:
An exhibition featuring programmes from the University Library collections
The University Library has a large number of programmes (primarily
concert programmes) in its collections. Some have arrived here under the
Copyright Act, many are donations. A recent project has meant that many
of the programmes have now been catalogued. For further details see: http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/
Curated by: Margaret Jones
January to May 2010
Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes
Nijinsky died in Paris in 1950 – he was 60 years of age, and had dazzled
audiences across Europe as a young man. The premier male dancer of his
age, and an innovative choreographer whose work would influence Isadora
Duncan and Martha Graham, his career was cut tragically short by
schizophrenia when he was still in his 20s. Three ballets in particular
have become synonymous with his name – Petrushka, L'après-midi d'un
faune, and The rite of spring.
Curated by: Margaret Jones
September to December 2009
Joseph Haydn 1732-1809: A selection from the Marion Scott Haydn Collection to mark the bicentenary of Haydn's death
Curated by Margaret Jones
April to September 2009
“In quires and places where they sing” (the A.H. Mann collection of anthem word books)
Curated by Richard Andrewes
January to April 2009
“Auld Lang Syne” (250th Anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns)
Curated by Margaret Jones