Uni acquires French music press and rare collection
[ UniNews Vol. 15, No. 14
7 - 21 August 2006 ] By Katherine Smith
One of the world’s most prestigious publishers of early scholarly music – the Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre of Monaco – has been given new life as the Lyrebird Press and relocated to the University of Melbourne.
Transferred to Melbourne along with the reborn music publisher are rare music printed materials collected by Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre founder Louise Hanson-Dyer. The collection of 15th to 19th century music imprints, first editions and music manuscripts, has been donated to the University.
Lyrebird Press was launched on campus last week by internationally renowned harpsichordist Kenneth Gilbert.
The occasion also celebrated the launch of the first Lyrebird Press title – a Catalogue of the entire Louise Hanson-Dyer collection – and the renaming of the University of Melbourne Music Library as the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library.
Lyrebird Press Editor-in-Chief, the University’s Head of Early Music Professor John Griffiths, says part of Lyrebird’s task will be to develop and publish a suite of online research resources in early modern musicology, as well as continuing to lead the world in scholarly music publishing.
He says acquisition of the Louise Hanson-Dyer collection is a milestone for Australian early European musicological scholarship, positioning the University of Melbourne music collection as probably the southern hemisphere’s richest in early European music materials.
Music Librarian Ms Evelyn Portek anticipates the collection will attract the interest of music scholars worldwide and believes it will be a beacon to scholars of early French Baroque Music.
Louise Hanson-Dyer was born Louise Smith in Melbourne in 1884. Becoming an accomplished pianist, she married wealthy businessman James Dyer in 1911 and achieved prominence as an outgoing Melbourne socialite known for organising flamboyant cultural events and as a Francophile and President of Alliance Française.
The Dyers eventually settled in Paris where, in 1929, Louise Dyer began collecting music. By 1931 her collection contained many valuable items, including first edition prints and manuscripts, early imprints of French opera and a collection of music treatises.
She established the Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre music publishing house in 1931 and ran it until her death in 1962 – having in 1939 become Louise Hanson-Dyer when, following James Dyer’s death, she married Jeff Hanson.
The collection later passed to Jeff Hanson’s second wife Margarita who in 1986 entered a formal arrangement with the University of Melbourne for the transfer of her ownership of the library.
“The University is profoundly grateful to Margarita Hanson for her generosity,” says Dean of Music, Professor Catherine Falk. “She joins Louise Hanson-Dyer and Jeff Hanson in a trio of major music benefactors to the University.”
Key historic and rare music manuscripts collected by Louise Hanson-Dyer are featured in From Bowerbird to Lyrebird: the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Collection, in the Baillieu Library’s First Floor Exhibition Space to 24 September.
|
|
