Contact information  •  History  •  Access & Facilities  •  Bibliography

ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-19

Last update of repository: 16 March 2020

Nauchnaia muzykal'naia biblioteka Sankt-Peterburgskoi gosudarstvennoi konservatorii im. N.A. Rimskogo-Korsakova (NMB SPbGK)


Previous names
1944–1991   Nauchno-muzykal'naia biblioteka Leningradskoi gosudarstvennoi konservatorii im. N.A. Rimskogo-Korsakova (NMB LGK)
[Scientific Music Library of the N.A. Rimskii-Korsakov Leningrad State Conservatory]
1924–1944   Muzykal'naia biblioteka Leningradskoi gosudarstvennoi konservatorii
[Music Library of the Leningrad State Conservatory]
1918–1924   Muzykal'naia biblioteka Petrogradskoi gosudarstvennoi konservatorii
[Music Library of the Petrograd State Conservatory]
1914–1918   Biblioteka Petrogradskoi konservatorii Russkogo muzykal'nogo obshchestva
[Library of the Petrograd Conservatory of the Russian Music Society]
1866–1914   Biblioteka Sankt-Peterburgskoi konservatorii
[Library of the St. Petersburg Conservatory]
1862–1866   Biblioteka Muzykal'nykh klassov Russkogo muzykal'nogo obshchestva
[Library of the Music Classes of the Russian Music Society]
1859–1862   Biblioteka Russkogo muzykal'nogo obshchestva (Biblioteka RMO)
[Library of the Russian Music Society]
History
The library was established in 1859 by the members of the Russian Music Society (after 1869, the Imperial Russian Music Society). In 1862, still under the society, it became the library of the so-called Music Classes. The Conservatory itself (E–80) was founded in 1866 and took over the earlier library collections as the basis for its library.
        The library’s manuscript holdings started in 1870, when the music collector M.P. Azanchevskii donated to the Conservatory his library and collection of autographs, which contained the valuable library collection of G.E. Anders, the Curator of the Music Division of St. Geneviève Library, which Azanchevskii had purchased in Paris. In 1872 the library acquired a collection of manuscripts of A.S. Dargomyzhskii, as part of the library collection of the conservatory inspector, A. Demidov. In 1896 it received the manuscripts that had belonged to the composer, violinist, and teacher N.Ia. Afanas'ev. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the library acquired the libraries and archives of a series of other well-known Russian composers, musicians, and teachers—the book and music score collection of the Russian Music Society and the libraries of Anton Rubinstein (A.G. Rubinshtein), A.K. Glazunov, F.I. Stravinskii, N.A. Rimskii-Korsakov, and V.V. Stasov, among others, as well as the archives of A.N. Serov and M.Iu. Viel'gorskii.
        In 1918 the Conservatory was transferred to the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) RSFSR and became part of the state network of higher educational institutions. During World War II, part of the library fonds together with the conservatory staff were evacuated to Tashkent (1941–1944).
        In general the library collects literature on music and musicology (ca. 500,000 volumes) and has been enriched over the years by a number of private collections. Dissertations that have been defended in the Conservatory, starting in the late 1920s, are shelved in the reading room.
        The Manuscript Division was established in 1937 and later became a separate sector of the library.
        In 1969, in honor of the 125th anniversary of the birth of N.A. Rimskii-Korsakov, a Museum of the History of the N.A. Rimskii-Korsakov St. Petersburg Conservatory was opened in the building of the Conservatory, to which was transferred some of the archival and manuscript materials held by the Conservatory for display purposes.

N.B. The archive of the Conservatory for the period 1917–1979 is retained in TsGALI SPb (D–18, fond no. 298).


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted