Fine Violins in Cyberspace: Exhibits at Gettysburg
by Timothy Sestrick
The gifts left to Gettysburg College in 2003 by alumnus Dr. F. William Sunderman, Sr., class of 1919, have provided unique opportunities for exhibits, outreach, and information literacy instruction at Musselman Library.
In addition to $15 million for the establishment of a music conservatory, Gettysburg College also received Dr. Sunderman’s music library of over 1,000 string chamber music scores and parts, as well as his collection of fine 18th and 19th century violins, currently housed in the Library’s Special Collections. The online exhibit A Gift of Music provides more information about the bequest, and features images from the score collection as well as an interactive display of six of the violins. With help from Zoomify software and programming by James Rutkowski of the College’s ITT Department, users can zoom in or out on specific areas of each instrument, and rotate them 360 degrees.
The score collection, meanwhile, has become the focus of the library exhibit 200 Years of Music: The Sunderman Music Library Collection. This collaborative exhibit highlights items from the collection published over a span of nearly 200 years, including a ca.1790 edition of the Viotti Six Duos Concertans; an 1837 edition of the Schubert String Quartet in A-minor, D. 804; and numerous arrangements for violin and piano from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibit also includes some unpublished items, such as a ca.1950 manuscript for former Eastman School of Music Professor Bernard Rogers’ cantata The Prophet Isaiah.
Descriptive text for the exhibit was written by students from Professor Marta Robertson’s fall 2004 Music of the High Baroque, Classical, and Romantic Eras class. As part of a semester-long research project, students were assigned specific scores and asked to complete a number of assignments relating to physical description, intellectual content, and historical background. Information literacy sessions dealing with topics such as score formats, uniform titles for music, and catalog and database searching supported this research, which the students then summarized for the exhibit text.
The exhibit, located on the main floor of Musselman Library, is accompanied by an audio soundtrack loaded onto iPod digital music players available at the circulation desk. The soundtrack features a few unusual recordings, such as the only-known performance of The Prophet Isaiah from Eastman’s 1963 Festival of American Music; as well as works recorded specifically for the exhibit by the Covington String Quartet, the College’s quartet-in-residence. The Quartet also performed music from the exhibit, using violins from the Sunderman collection, at a concert held in the library.
--Timothy Sestrick, music librarian, Musselman Library, Gettysburg College