2009 août | Médiathèque Musicale Mahler

Institution

Institutions

The Médiathèque Musicale Mahler in Paris was founded in 1986 by the noted musicologist Henry-Louis de La Grange and the music-critic Maurice Fleuret, who wished to make available to a large public their extensive collections related to 19th and 20th century music.

The Médiathèque Musicale Mahler in Paris is a non-profit organization constituted in accordance with the law of 1901 governing French charitable institutions. It has been officially approved by the Fondation de France. The Institution is presided by Mr Pierre Bergé.

Honorary president : Henry-Louis de La Grange

Président : Pierre Bergé

Vice-président : Jacques Lonchampt

General Secretary : Laurent Bayle

Treasurer : François Tripet

Honorary advisers : Claudio Abbado, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Brendel, Elliott Carter, Riccardo Chailly, James Conlon, Henri Dutilleux, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Hampson, Eliahu Inbal, Christa Ludwig, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Jessye Norman, Seiji Ozawa, Murray Perahia, Simon Rattle, Tilson Thomas, Iannis Xenakis.

Others donors to the collections : Maïmé Arnodin, Claude Bandieri, Eric Baude, Jacques et Gérard Brunschwig, Odile Budan, Marie-Germaine Dorgeuille, Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris-Alfred Cortot, Maurice Fleuret, Bernard Goué, Jeanne Green-Le Flem, Desi Halban von Saher, Mireille Helffer, Christine Jolivet, Irène Kamerling, Lotte Klemperer, Yves Koechlin, Madeleine Li-Koechlin, Henry-Louis de La Grange, Jacques Lonchampt, Marina Mahler, Madeleine Milhaud, Denise Paulme-Schaeffner, Gérard Pellier, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Jean Raindre, Albi Rosenthal, Claudine Rosenthal, Jacqueline Roskam, Jean-Manuel de Scarano, André Tubeuf, Jacques Vautrin, Josée Natika Yznaga.

Services

The Médiathèque Musicale Mahler in Paris has an international reputation as a general resource center for music research and for various collections. A third of its visitors come from outside France (European countries, America and Asia).

To valorise these collections, put at the public’s disposal thanks to Maurice Fleuret and Henry-Louis de La Grange, the Médiathèque Musicale Mahler proposes several services: in-house consultation of documents, documentary or iconographic research, and organisation of exhibitions.

For any additional information, please refer to the « Services » section in the French version.

Collections

Documentation

In addition to the historical collections described above, the Library maintains a separate section devoted to a «living» documentation of music today in all its aspects: interpretation, distribution, and current scholarly evaluations. The nucleus of this collection is drawn from the extensive personal files of the late Maurice Fleuret, one of France¹s most influential music critics, over a period of more than twenty years.

Approximately 17,000 files on French and international composers and performers of the recent past and present contain information about their works and performances, biographies, articles and reviews, concert and theatre programs, and photographs.

This section is systematically updated by clippings relating to French and international musical events and is periodically augmented by archival donations from a number of musicologists and critics.

To access the list of the documentation files, see “Ressources en lignes” (in French).

Collections

Music scores

This collection, the core of which being the personal library of the pianist Alfred Cortot (there are many annotations in Cortot’s hand), numbers over 35,000 scores, including miniature scores, piano-vocal scores, orchestra scores and chamber music. It has been regularly enlarged, owing to an active acquisition policy encompassing the contemporary as well as classical repertoire. Notable items in this collection are the complete critical editions of the works of composers ranging from Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz or Debussy to Schoenberg, Shostakovich or Stravinsky.

Collections

Periodicals

The periodicals room displays more than 200 international music magazines. This major collection was started at the end of the 19th century, and its contents are of great historical interest. Among the 200 different titles to be found in this collection, more than a third are still in circulation and continue to be subscribed to selectively. In order to facilitate access to this precious source of information, the reader will find that all the feature articles published in these periodicals have been indexed alphabetically in the library’s central catalogue. Plans are currently under way to computerize the entire contents of the library.

Collections

Recordings

The impressive collection of some 30,000 Long-Playing records and over 40,000 CDs, filed by composer as well as by genre, holds many hard-to-find gems, such as recordings of rare works and unknown operas, albums unavailable long-since, as well as recitals by singers and instrumentalists from the beginning of the 20th century. An index containing no fewer than 170,000 entries allows each recording to be easily located.

Collections

Books

A vast collection of over 20,000 volumes in French, German, English, Italian and other languages, stands as a reference library of unparalled depth and diversity and is a unique tool for the study of classical music from the Middle Ages to our time. The core of this collection was assembled by the famous French pianist Alfred Cortot (1877-1962). Virtually anything of importance published in the last hundred years concerning any composer in the history of Western music can be found in this collection.

Collections

Gustav Mahler's glasses (Médiathèque Musicale Mahler, Paris)

The Médiathèque Musicale Mahler in Paris, named after one of the most universally acclaimed composers of the 20th century, offers a truly exceptional collection of documents relating to classical music. The library houses an extensive collection of books in four languages, an important collection of music reviews and periodicals, a large collection of recordings, including LPs, cassettes, and CDs, an important collection of scores, rare original manuscripts, rare musical archives, a rich archive of photographs, comprehensive reference files on most of the major composers and great performers of the 20th century.

For practical information, including adress and office hours, please refer to the « Services » section.

The « Services » section of the French version informs you about the Médiathèque Musicale Mahler’s other initiatives.

For any additional information, please refer to the French version.