Schubert Club Museum of Musical Instruments

The Gilman Ordway Manuscript Collection

This collection began with a donation by Gilman Ordway in 1984 of twenty-three letters from composers, alphabetically reaching from Beethoven to Wagner. Named for that original donor and collector who has since provided much more material, the collection now numbers more than a hundred pieces of correspondence from famous musicians, as well as many signed photographs. Highlights include letters by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. There is also a short musical manuscript by our namesake Franz Schubert.

In addition to the individual manuscripts and special exhibits in the museum, items from the Gilman Ordway Manuscript Collection are on display at the Saint Paul Public Library and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Currently, there are two exhibits in The Schubert Club Museum's Second Floor Galleries in Landmark Center.

• The Hand of the Master-Letters from Ten Great Composers

• The Spiering Papers- A German-American Life in Music

The Hand of the Master
Letters from Ten Great Composers

Beethoven - Brahms - Chopin - Haydn - Mendelssohn - Mozart - Schubert - Tchaikovsky - Verdi - Wagner

Exhibit in Second Floor Gallery, Landmark Center

Letters in the Exhibit:

Ludwig van Beethoven - writing to composer and pianist Ferdinand Ries, dated March 5, 1818

Johannes Brahms - writing from his summer residence in Mürzzuschlag, Styria, on July 12, 1884 to Max Kalbeck, music critic and biographer

Frédéric Chopin - writing from Marseilles on March 17, 1839 to his friend Count Wojciech Grzymala

Joseph Haydn - writing on Jan 11, 1794 to congratulate his godson Josef Weigl on the premiere of his opera La Principessa d'Amalfi

Felix Mendelssohn - writing from Leipzig on April 25, 1841 to his friend E.H.W. Verkinius in Cologne

W. A. Mozart - writing from Frankfurt on September 30, 1790 to his wife Constanze

Franz Schubert's setting, in his own hand, or Theodore Körner's 1813 poem "Jägerlied," the Rifleman

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky - writing August 21, 1892 from Klin, outside Moscow, to the directors of the Vienna exhibition about arrangements for a performance

Giuseppe Verdi - writing (probably in the 1860s) to an unnamed correspondent

Richard Wagner - writing from Venice on December 17, 1882 to his friend Ernst Wilhelm Frisch about a concert in honor of his wife Cosima's birthday.

Musical History as it Happened

At the bottom of the second page of his letter,Tchaikovsky suggests that he conduct the Nutcracker ballet suite that he has just composed.

Key Signatures

Mozart's signature on a letter to his wife.

Beethoven's signature on the 1818 letter.

Balalaikas of different sizes are on display in the "Russian corner"

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The Spiering Papers:
A German - American Life in Music

Exhibit in Second Floor Gallery, Landmark Center

This collection of materials opens a window on a lost cultural world. Documents relating to violinist Theodore Spiering illustrate the strong German-American musical culture of the early twentieth century and tell the story of a life from this vibrant and now-vanished epoch.

Exhibit Visitor

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Spiering went to Berlin to study. Under his teacher Joachim's auspices, Spiering met and performed for Johannes Brahms — and also acquired his 1729 Guarneri violin (now owned by the Juilliard School of Music). Theodore Spiering (1871-1925) - violinist, conductor, composer, teacher

Inscription from Brahms on the back of Spiering's photograph. The exhibit includes the letter of recommendation that Joachim wrote to Theodore Thomas, helping Spiering become concertmaster with the Chicago Symphony. Letters from Gustav Mahler discuss plans about their work with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. There is also an amusing letter that Spiering wrote to his wife about being on tour with Mahler and the orchestra.

Spiering: • Star pupil of famed violinist Joseph Joachim • Performed for Johannes Brahms • Concertmaster with the Chicago Symphony under Theodore Thomas • Formed The Spiering Quartet, which toured the US and played an informal premiere for Dvorak of his "American" string quartet • Promoted and conducted new music, including tours in Germany with composer Amy Beach • Conducted and performed as soloist with New York and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras • Chosen by Mahler to be concertmaster with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra • Conducted 17 concerts in 1911 when Mahler became ill • Chaired the Austro-German Musicians' Relief Fund after WWI • Edited music for Carl Fischer publishing company • Selected as conductor for Portland Symphony (Oregon)

Caricature of Speiring conducting

 

The exhibit also includes a Civil War commission for Spiering's grandfather (signed by Lincoln), a sculpted bust of Spiering by Brenda Putnam, letters from pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch, violinist Fritz Kresiler, and conductor Alfred Hertz.

Spiering shown with his wife, daughters, and violin. Most of the items in The Spiering Papers exhibit were given to The Schubert Club by Spiering's younger daughter, Wilma (on the right in the photograph)

Interpretive material in the exhibit includes facsimiles of numerous other items in the collection, including three more letters from Mahler to Spiering and a letter from Sibelius to Spiering. There are also newspaper and journal articles, caricatures, certificates, posters, concert playbills, a ship's passenger list, family photographs, information about Spiering's brother (World's Fair architect Louis Spiering), a reminiscence Spiering wrote about Mahler (Zwei Jahre mit Gustav Mahler in New York), etc.

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