Robbin Gallery Reopens with Exhibition of Musical Treasures

Section of a manuscript of Franz Liszt's Mephisto Polka

A new Library exhibition displays original manuscripts by Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and other celebrated composers, as well as several notable recent acquisitions.

Da Capo: Music Selections from the Robbin Collection and Library Endowments highlights these works, which were given to the Library by Leon Robbin (L’22, Honoris Causa 1997) or purchased with funds from Library endowments. It is the first exhibition in the Robbin Gallery in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections on the fifth floor of Lau since the start of the pandemic.

Works on display include an autographed manuscript of Beethoven’s “Appassionata Sonata” and a copyist’s manuscript of Liszt’s “Mephisto Polka” with revisions in Liszt’s hand. Recent acquisitions in the exhibition include “The Hymn of Jewish Resistance,” written by Hirsh Glick while confined in the Vilna Ghetto during the Holocaust, and a notebook kept by an African-American teacher attending the Birminham State Normal Branch of Summer Teachers at the Industrial School in 1928, with notes from music classes and lectures from figures like George Washington Carver.

Many of the manuscript descriptions in this exhibition were created for previous Robbin Gallery exhibitions by former Associate University Librarian for Special Collections George M. Barringer, who passed away earlier this year.