Catalogue of the Music Manuscripts in the British Library Stefan Zweig Collection: Catalogue of the music manuscripts

The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) built up a large collection of autograph manuscripts. At first he concentrated principally on literature and historical documents, but increasingly turned his attention to music, particularly in his later years. Many of the items in the Zweig Collection at the British Library are acquisitions from this period. The collection is strong in Austrian and German classics: for Mozart there are 11 music manuscripts, as well as letters, his marriage contract and the thematic catalogue of his works which he kept from 1784 until the end of his life. Bach is represented by a complete sacred cantata; the Haydn items include one of the London symphonies; among the Schubert manuscripts is perhaps his best known song: "An die Musik"; there is the notebook Beethoven kept in his first years in Vienna, Brahms' "Zigeunerlieder" and an array of early sketches by Wagner. There are also manuscripts of workd by Alessandro Scarlatti and Handel, Offenbach, Mussorgsky, Grieg and Debussy. The 20th century is represented by Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Bartok, Ravel and Stravinsky.
This catalogue illustrates and contains entries on over 130 manuscripts, by 52 composers, making the entire Zweig Collection available to scholars.