- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
- Find Related Materials
Expanded View
Collection Overview
- Creator:
- Mendel, Arthur, 1905-1979
- Title:
- Arthur Mendel Papers
- Repository:
- Manuscripts Division
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/qv33rw67m
- Dates:
- 1937-1981 1950-1979 (mostly 1950-1979)
- Size:
- 24 boxes
- Storage Note:
- Firestone Library (mss): Box 1-24
- Language:
- English
Abstract
Arthur Mendel was a prominent music scholar in the twentieth century and a professor at Princeton University. The collection contains correspondence with professional colleagues, course notes, musical notes, scrapbooks, and clippings. There is also additional unprocessed material from Mendel's time at Princeton.
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Description:
The collection consists of articles, correspondence, course notes, scrapbooks (1937-1952), memorabilia, and printed matter of Mendel, a professor of music at Princeton (1952-1973). The collection contains correspondence between Mendel, professional colleagues, and organizations such as the American Musicological Society, the Josquin Committee, and the International Josquin Festival Conference (June 1971) in New York, N.Y. There are also Mendel's records on the status of dissertations, course notes for a senior seminar in music history, material on pitches of various instruments and standard tuning frequencies, and scrapbooks containing letters, public relations announcements, and newspaper reviews of the Cantata Singers of All Souls Church in New York City, of which he was the conductor. In addition, there are liability insurance policies and cancelled personal checks of Mendel's wife, Elsa.
Additional material, also unprocessed was added to the collection in May 2007. This material includes sixteen binders and folders of Mendel while he was at Princeton University. The binders contain sheet music, original manuscript material, class curriculum and notes, and writings and criticism of Bach. Also included is correspondence; a binder labeled "Arthur's Honors"; photographs from an exhibition about Mendel; personal photographs; a photo album of his wife Elsa Wissell and her family, and documents about her death and her estate; photographs and letters about the "Cantata Singers"; printed material; and newspaper clippings.
- Arrangement
This is an unprocessed collection and remains in its original arrangement.
- Collection Creator Biography:
Mendel, Arthur, 1905-1979
After graduation from Harvard University (B.A. 1925), Mendel went to Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger (1925-1927). He was music critic of The Nation (1930-1933), literary editor for G. Schirmer (1930-1938), editor of the American Musicological Society's journal (1940-1943), and editor for Associated Music Publishers (1941-1947). He was also an active translator. From 1936 to 1953 he conducted the Cantata Singers, one of the first groups in the USA to give authentic performances of Baroque music. He taught at the Dalcroze School of Music and the Diller - Quaile School in New York (1938-1950), serving as president of the former (1947-1950).
In the late 1940s Mendel gained recognition as a musicologist. He was appointed professor of music at Princeton University (1952), where he was departmental chairman (1952-1967), and held the Henry Putnam University Professorship from 1969 until his retirement in 1973. He was a member of the editorial boards of the Neue Bach - Ausgabe and the new Josquin edition. Mendel published studies on the history of musical pitch and the rhythmic structure of Renaissance and Baroque music. His editions and studies of Bach's life and works, most notably the documentary biography The Bach Reader (1945, with Hans T. David), and his practical and critical editions of the St. John Passion (1951, 1974), brought him recognition as the foremost American Bach scholar of his generation.
In his later years he investigated the music of Josquin and possible applications of computer technology to musicological problems. A Festschrift in his honor, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Music, was published in 1974 (edited by Robert L. Marshall).
Collection History
- Acquisition:
Gift of the author. Additional material : transfer from Princeton University's Woolworth Music Center, May 1, 2007. AM 2007-100.
- Appraisal
No appraisal information is available.
- Processing Information
This is an unprocessed collection. The contents list provided is a preliminary inventory.
Access & Use
- Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Inquiries regarding publishing material from the collection should be directed to RBSC Public Services staff through the Ask Us! form. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.
- Credit this material:
Arthur Mendel Papers; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/qv33rw67m
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- Firestone Library (mss): Box 1-24
Find More
- Subject Terms:
- Conductors (Music) -- New York (State) -- New York.
Music -- Instruction and study -- New Jersey -- Princeton -- 20th century.
Music -- New York (State) -- New York -- Congresses -- 20th century.
Musical pitch.
Princeton University -- Faculty. - Genre Terms:
- Correspondence.
Faculty papers.
Scrapbooks - Names:
- Cantata Singers.
All Soul's Church (New York, N.Y.)
American musicological society
Princeton University.
Josquin, des Prez, -1521
