A Contribution to the History of Military Music in the Kingdom of Hanover
Helmut Lauterwasser
Monday, January 16, 2017
A unique collection of music manuscripts in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek (Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek), Hanover
The well over 1,000 handwritten scores of the first and last Royal Hanover Army Music Director Johann Viktor Gerold (1808-1876) form one of the most extensive collections of nineteenth-century military music. In a circuitous fashion the manuscripts, all in Gerold’s hand, went from the estate of the last king of the Kingdom of Hanover, George V, and in 1979 ended up in the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek (State Library of Lower Saxony) in Hanover, today the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek (D-HVl). All works were cataloged for RISM and have recently been published in the RISM online catalog.
To supplement this, an article has appeared in the Berichte series published by the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek that summarizes the most important findings that have come from cataloging the collection. The article offers an overview of the Sammlung Gerold and illuminates the music history context, which would not be evident from the catalog records in the RISM database alone.
The complete text can be read and downloaded here.
Image: First page of the score Das Königreich Hannover by King George V, arranged by and in the hand of Johann Viktor Gerold. D-HVl, Noviss. 145 : 2, No 86 (RISM ID no. 450118289).
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