Performing Arts Special Collections
Performing Arts Special Collections

Rare and Antiquarian Books and Scores

This collection includes rare and antiquarian books and scores, facsimile editions of both printed and manuscript music, and other items of special value or requiring special care. Original materials do not circulate.

These materials are cataloged in the UCLA Library Catalog.

Subject strengths

Seventeenth- through nineteenth-century opera

  • Raccolta di Drammi (Venetian opera libretto collection): 1286 published librettos, bound in chronological order, comprehensively representing Venetian opera productions between 1637 and 1769.
  • Additional extensive holdings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French and Italian opera librettos
  • Early printed editions, including first editions, of full scores and piano vocal scores of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century operas. Composers include Adam, Auber, Beethoven, Bellini, Boieldieu, Destouches, Donizetti, Gluck, Grétry, Halevy, Haydn, Lully, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Paer, Paisiello, Pergolesi, Philidor, Pinnini, Rossini, Sacchini, and Spohr

Ballads and songs of the British Isles

  • Published eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English ballads

History and theory of western music

  • Original editions of early music dictionaries, encyclopedias, essays, and histories, including:
    • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique (1764)
    • Charles Burney, A general history of music (1782-89)
    • Heinrich Christoph Koch, Musikalishes Lexikon (1802)
    • M. de Laborde, Recherches sur l'analogie de la musique avec les arts (1807)
    • Gustav Schilling, Encyclopädie ... oder Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst (1835)
    • A variety of early printed chant books and sixteenth-century part-books
  • Original editions of theoretical works, critical writings, and pedagogical works, including:
    • Daniel Gottlob Türk, Klavierschule (1802)
    • Louis Adam, Method de piano du Conservatoire (1805)
    • Carl Czerny, Impromptus... (1826)
    • Nicolo Paganini Variazioni sur Barucaba (1850)
    • Élémens de musique, théorique et pratique suivant les principes de M. Rameau (1759)
  • Early printed editions including first editions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century chamber and piano music, including works by J. C. Bach, Beethoven, Boccherini, Cherubini, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, Pleyel (especially strong holdings), and Schubert
  • Published facsimiles of music manuscripts and imprints from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century; examples of particularly fine, limited-edition facsimiles from the Middle Ages include:
    • Squacialupi Codex (early fifteenth century; fourteenth-century Italian repertoire)
    • St. Katherine Graduale (ca. 1312)
    • Codex Calixtinus (twelfth century)

Independent Manuscripts

The manuscript collection consists of manuscripts that are independent of the archival collections. An unpublished finding aid for the collection is available.

Manuscripts dated between 1600 and 1800 have been cataloged by RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales/International Inventory of Musical Sources). The catalog records are available in both printed and electronic forms.

  • Printed catalog: US Laum, the University of California at Los Angeles, Music Library: Thematic Catalogue of Music in Manuscript. International Inventory of Musical Sources: A/II. Joint Committee on RISM of the American Musicological Society and Music Library Association, 1993. Music Library Reference Stacks: ML 136 L84 U5495 1993.
  • On the Web: RISM Online. To find UCLA Music Library records, include the Library siglum, US LAum, in the search.