The Schubert collection of Anton Diabelli and its diffusion: a contribution to provenance research
One aim of the database project Schubert digital supervised by the Vienna research group of the New Schubert Edition at the ACDH-CH is to determine the exact provenances and the current locations of Franz Schubert’s music manuscripts. The project will document not only the transmission and current condition, but also the original form of each autograph. In particular, the reconstruction of changing ownership and locations up to recent times poses challenges for Schubert research, as it was not only the passage of time and catastrophes such as world war and expulsion that contributed to the blurring of the lines of transmission of individual manuscripts or even entire collections.
This project focuses on the little researched collection of Schubert manuscripts of the music publisher August Cranz. In 1876 August’s son Alwin Cranz (1834–1923) acquired the extensive music archive of the Viennese Schubert publisher Anton Diabelli via detours. The Cranz collection was apparently preserved in its entirety until 1945, but was then quickly broken up. The cousins Alwin jun. (Vienna) and Albert Cranz (Brussels) sold music manuscripts mainly through Swiss and US antiquarian booksellers and intermediaries. Some of the manuscripts were taken apart and divided among various buyers. Many of the almost one hundred individual manuscripts are now – though purchase, resale and donation – in public collections all over the world or in private ownership; others are considered lost.
The first step is to figure out which autographs Anton Diabelli – or rather his successor publisher Spina – actually owned and what of these were still in the Cranz archive after two generations, before information is gathered on where and to whom these manuscripts were sold and resold after the dissolution and dispersal of the archive. The basis is the updated Critical Reports of the New Schubert Edition, together with research into the more recent history of the August Cranz music publishing house, in particular to shed light on the whereabouts of the manuscripts before and after 1945.
The results of the project will be published and integrated in Schubert digital.
Publications
Publications
Lectures
Lectures