Pan Cogito Raises An Eye-Brow Over Claim That Mozart And Beethoven Manuscripts In Krakow University Library Are "A Wound In Germany's Cultural Life"
"A priceless manuscript at a Polish library shows how Mozart wrote down his Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major -- neat, small notes, no corrections.
Its neighbor in the collection, Beethoven's original copy of the third movement of his Symphony No. 8, bears witness to his creative agonies, with furious jottings and deletions.
Both manuscripts are towering monuments of Germanic [sic] culture.
But they've been in Poland since World War II -- and despite pressure from the German government Poland says it has no intention of giving them back.
The documents at the Jagiellonian Library are among tens of thousands of manuscripts the Nazis took out of Berlin's national library to protect from Allied bombings. They were initially moved to a military fortress and then hidden away in a remote Benedictine monastery. After the war, Polish authorities transported the manuscripts to the university library in Krakow.
A recent article in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung referred to the manuscripts from the former Prussian State Library as ''the last German prisoners of war.''
That stirred an angry response from Poland, which called German claims for their return ''entirely groundless.''
Negotiations have dragged on for 15 years with no end in sight.
''I consider myself very lucky to be able to take care of this collection and to help secure it for world culture,'' library director Zdzislaw Pietrzyk said in his office. ''It really makes an impression on you to be dealing with a Mozart original.'' ...
There was also a stained and scribbled original manuscript of Beethoven's Eighth, with corrections in pencil, along with his very sketchy pencil notes for his Ninth Symphony.
Other treasures included a 15th century Latin prayer book, with gold, pink and blue letter illuminations; the writings of Jakob Reinhold Lenz, an 18th century German poet and playwright; and one of the oldest existing music books, printed in 1507.
German hopes of regaining the collection offend many in Poland, which lost 6 million people and vast cultural treasures, including an estimated 22 million books and hundreds of thousands of art works, in nearly six years of German World War II occupation. ...
A key issue is that the manuscripts from Berlin were not taken by the Soviet army, as were many German cultural items at the end of the war, but left behind by the Germans in territory that later became Poland.
Pietrzyk said it was fortunate that in 1945 a team of Polish librarians found this part of the Prussian Library collection -- which contains roughly 100,000 items -- in the Benedictine monastery at Krzeszow, formerly Grussau [and near Wroclaw, formerly Breslau], just in time to save it from possible looters. Fifteen of the 505 wooden chests holding it had already been destroyed or stolen.
The collection, which contains manuscripts by romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was part of a total of about 3 million items that were evacuated from Berlin libraries between 1941-44. It first went to the Fuerstenberg, or Ksiaz, fortress in the Sudety mountains, and then on to Krzeszow, when the fortress was earmarked as a facility for Adolf Hitler. ...
Tono Eitel, the chief German negotiator for the return of cultural objects, was quoted by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as calling Germany's loss of the treasures a ''wound in Germany's cultural life.''
In 1947, the treasures were put into the care of the Jagiellonian library, where they were catalogued and reproduced on microfiche or photocopies for public viewing.
Several prominent items were returned under communist rule.
In 1977, Polish leader Edward Gierek gave East German leader Erich Honecker the original scores of Mozart's ''The Magic Flute,'' his Mass in C-minor, the ''Jupiter'' Symphony and Bach's concerto in C-minor. In return, Honecker handed over a portrait of Poland's 17th century King Jan III Sobieski."
Associated Press "Germany, Poland Fight Over Manuscripts" New York Times August 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Poland-Librarys-Treasures.html
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Hapsburg Empire, Prussia [Brandenburg], Sweden, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire at the time that J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, and Domenico Scarlatti were all one year old [1686]. [Telemann and Vivaldi were then slightly older.]
[Click on image to enlarge.]
Image credit: Wikipeddia Commons. With thanks.
Its neighbor in the collection, Beethoven's original copy of the third movement of his Symphony No. 8, bears witness to his creative agonies, with furious jottings and deletions.
Both manuscripts are towering monuments of Germanic [sic] culture.
But they've been in Poland since World War II -- and despite pressure from the German government Poland says it has no intention of giving them back.
The documents at the Jagiellonian Library are among tens of thousands of manuscripts the Nazis took out of Berlin's national library to protect from Allied bombings. They were initially moved to a military fortress and then hidden away in a remote Benedictine monastery. After the war, Polish authorities transported the manuscripts to the university library in Krakow.
A recent article in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung referred to the manuscripts from the former Prussian State Library as ''the last German prisoners of war.''
That stirred an angry response from Poland, which called German claims for their return ''entirely groundless.''
Negotiations have dragged on for 15 years with no end in sight.
''I consider myself very lucky to be able to take care of this collection and to help secure it for world culture,'' library director Zdzislaw Pietrzyk said in his office. ''It really makes an impression on you to be dealing with a Mozart original.'' ...
There was also a stained and scribbled original manuscript of Beethoven's Eighth, with corrections in pencil, along with his very sketchy pencil notes for his Ninth Symphony.
Other treasures included a 15th century Latin prayer book, with gold, pink and blue letter illuminations; the writings of Jakob Reinhold Lenz, an 18th century German poet and playwright; and one of the oldest existing music books, printed in 1507.
German hopes of regaining the collection offend many in Poland, which lost 6 million people and vast cultural treasures, including an estimated 22 million books and hundreds of thousands of art works, in nearly six years of German World War II occupation. ...
A key issue is that the manuscripts from Berlin were not taken by the Soviet army, as were many German cultural items at the end of the war, but left behind by the Germans in territory that later became Poland.
Pietrzyk said it was fortunate that in 1945 a team of Polish librarians found this part of the Prussian Library collection -- which contains roughly 100,000 items -- in the Benedictine monastery at Krzeszow, formerly Grussau [and near Wroclaw, formerly Breslau], just in time to save it from possible looters. Fifteen of the 505 wooden chests holding it had already been destroyed or stolen.
The collection, which contains manuscripts by romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was part of a total of about 3 million items that were evacuated from Berlin libraries between 1941-44. It first went to the Fuerstenberg, or Ksiaz, fortress in the Sudety mountains, and then on to Krzeszow, when the fortress was earmarked as a facility for Adolf Hitler. ...
Tono Eitel, the chief German negotiator for the return of cultural objects, was quoted by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as calling Germany's loss of the treasures a ''wound in Germany's cultural life.''
In 1947, the treasures were put into the care of the Jagiellonian library, where they were catalogued and reproduced on microfiche or photocopies for public viewing.
Several prominent items were returned under communist rule.
In 1977, Polish leader Edward Gierek gave East German leader Erich Honecker the original scores of Mozart's ''The Magic Flute,'' his Mass in C-minor, the ''Jupiter'' Symphony and Bach's concerto in C-minor. In return, Honecker handed over a portrait of Poland's 17th century King Jan III Sobieski."
Associated Press "Germany, Poland Fight Over Manuscripts" New York Times August 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Poland-Librarys-Treasures.html
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Hapsburg Empire, Prussia [Brandenburg], Sweden, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire at the time that J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, and Domenico Scarlatti were all one year old [1686]. [Telemann and Vivaldi were then slightly older.]
[Click on image to enlarge.]
Image credit: Wikipeddia Commons. With thanks.
posted by Garth Trinkl at 11:07 AM
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