THE TYSON COLLECTION

O.W. NEIGHBOUR

I N 1961 an article appeared in a musical journal proving that two piano trios usuallyaccepted without question as Haydn's were in fact by Ignaz Pleyel. The author was AlanTyson, who for the next thirty years was to play a leading role in scholarly research intomusic of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Beyond learning the violaand to a lesser extent the piano he had not studied music. At Rugby he had been tornbetween Classics and science, but it was decided that he should do Classics. So Classicshe did, perhaps with mixed feelings but with conspicuous success. After graduating atOxford in 1951 with a double first he became a fellow of All Souls the followingyear.

Although this position, which he retained until his retirement in 1994, provided anenduring connection with Oxford, the career that he first embarked upon took him toLondon, where he trained as a psychoanalyst and practised for several years. Then, ini960, he became a medical student at University College Hospital, and having qualifiedin 1965 completed his hospital internships two years later, when he was over forty. Noneof this, however, absorbed all his energies (as he remarked to me at the time, he did notplay rugger). If his classical studies had left no other readily perceptible trace they hadawakened in him a strong interest in textual criticism. For a short spell he consideredworking on Shakespeare, but he soon concluded that the field was too well tilled, andturned his attention to music instead. The choice was decisive for his future; eventually,from about 1970, he was to abandon psychiatry and medicine in favour of full-timemusicology.

What first prompted this choice is uncertain, but it seems likely that the relativeabundance and inexpensiveness in the 1950s of antiquarian printed music of the classicaland early romantic periods had much to do with it. For Tyson was a born collector. Hislibrary contained a number of standard political and philosophical works in early editionswhich he must have picked up while still an undergraduate reading Greats, and theacquisition of early editions of music with which he was familiar would certainly haveexcited his curiosity about their textual status. In any case there can be no doubt thathis collecting nourished his scholarship at least up to the end of the 1960s. Later hebecame more concerned with manuscript studies, notably of Beethoven's sketches andthe watermarks in Mozart's autographs, but his work always derived strength from his

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understanding of every stage along the difficult path by which music reaches print, andwhen rising prices allowed he continued to collect well into the 1980s.

It had been Tyson's intention to bequeath to the British Library and the BodleianLibrary, in that order, anything from his collection that they might want before theremainder was dispersed through the antiquarian book trade. He is now, unfortunately,incapacitated by illness, but through the great generosity of his family his wishes havebeen honoured. The gift is of enormous benefit to both institutions. Numbers meanlittle, but it is appropriate to give some indication of them. The British Library hasretained nearly 1,200 items of printed music, the Bodleian, building on a more restrictedfoundation, about 1,000 more than that (nine English editions of Beethoven required byneither have been presented to the Beethovenhaus in Bonn); the manuscripts, whichhave come to the British Library, amount to about seventy; of the books, ranging fromsource material right through to recent scholarly publications, the British Library hastaken about 125 and the Bodleian 215. Since only a small proportion of the earlier itemsproved to be duplicated in both libraries, the two between them now house most of themore valuable material. This includes not only a vast number of editions reflectingTyson's main concerns, among them individual rarities mentioned in his published workor listed as his in bibliographies, but much else relating to interests that never resultedin publication, or contributing to a wide background knowledge without which hisresearch could not have prospered. His working papers have been placed in the Bodleian.

What cause had the British Library given him for gratitude? Naturally his interest inprinted editions took him to many libraries, but it was at the British Museum that hefound by far the richest collection for his purposes. For many years from the lateeighteenth century the music sent for registration to Stationers' Hall was regularlyforwarded there, and after the passing of the 1814 Copyright Act much was claimed directfrom the publishers as well. Although a century was to pass before much effort was putinto buying continental editions of the period, good progress was eventually made,especially in the years between the two World Wars. When Paul Hirsch's library wasacquired in 1946 its great strength in early editions of the Viennese classics was seen asone of the main justifications for its purchase. There was, of course, a good deal ofapparent duplication with items already in the Museum, and grumbling was inevitablyheard, luckily in uninfluential quarters, that the money had been ill spent. However,duplicates are seldom what they seem, not least in engraved music, where emendationor the need to replace worn or damaged plates may as easily rob an edition of its textualauthority as improve it. Tyson often found that the range of variant copies available tohim at the Museum, supplemented in many cases by his own, enabled him to reach anunderstanding of the history of a text that he would have been hard put to it to acquireanywhere else. Nearly all his work up to the mid 1960s owed its origins to these fortunatecircumstances: his book on the authentic English editions of Beethoven, his thematiccatalogue of Clementi, and his studies of Beethoven editions published by S. A. Steinerand by Maurice Schlesinger, of the Diabelli Variations, of the early collected editions ofBeethoven by Haslingcr and Moscheles, and of Field's earliest compositions. Practical

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experience of the usefulness of his own collection in relation to the Museum's holdingswas at the root of his desire that it should complement them permanently.

It must not be thought that Tyson's work on printed sources had prevented him fromfinding his way to the Department of Manuscripts. His very first essay, mentioned at thebeginning of this article, though prompted by an edition and a document of his own,involved Haydn correspondence in the Museum. Only a year later there followed the firstof his important manuscript studies, which corrected prevalent errors in the text ofBeethoven's Viohn Concerto on the basis of the copyist's score likewise in the Museum.It proved to be the forerunner of several Beethoven essays published in the early 1970s.They show clearly that Tyson's work on Beethoven's copyists and sketches, howevercomprehensive it was to become, developed from his need to answer questions first posedfor him by the Museum's early copies of the Violin and Triple Concertos and Christusam Oelberge, and by the so-called Pastoral Symphony Sketchbook. Similarly, his labourson the watermarks in Mozart's autographs originated in the Museum. His first twoarticles to draw on this type of evidence, both of 1975, dealt with the 'Prussian' stringquartets and La Clemenza di Tito, of which the quartet autographs belonged to theMuseum (or by then to the British Library), and an aria from the opera was among theautographs in the Zweig collection on loan there since 1957 (and eventually donated in1986). During the fifteen years or more which it took him to compile his immenseinventory of the watermarks in the whole of Mozart's available output, it remained agreat advantage for him to have over thirty autographs close at hand in the Library forcomparison (when the Library published facsimiles of eleven of Mozart's chamber worksin two volumes, and of his own thematic catalogue, Tyson provided introductions).

Here his collection could make no direct contribution, for autographs of this kind werebeyond his means. But he would sometimes buy early manuscripts if he suspected thatthey might possess intrinsic textual value or throw light on questions of transmission.That, of course, was in accordance with his primary purpose in amassing the wholecollection, though he was tempted into many by-ways (often very fruitfully) and, asalways, outside circumstances played a part. The circumstance that the foundations ofthe collection were laid in England provides a good starting point for attempting tosurvey it in a little more detail, tracing various patterns and incidentally noting some ofthe individual items which have come to the British Library.

When Tyson began collecting, eighteenth and nineteenth-century English editionswere not hard to come by. Handel, whose music was published almost exclusively inEngland, will have been among the first objects of his attention. He bought a few things,but no doubt because the printed editions are in general so much less important textuallythan the manuscript sources he did not persist. Despite the presence of odd pre-classicalEnglish items resulting from his constant habit of straying outside his usual fields ofinterest when something caught his eye, for instance an eighteenth-century manuscriptof Purcell's King Arthur, the collection begins in earnest at the heart of his musicalenthusiasms, with Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

A list of some of the outstanding items by these composers will suggest the quality of

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t. '/'

'/>.••. J'/.-,r<-/ f/»/.'ff,- / v / . . / A v / r , . , / , . , /..•/,'/.• f / . / / / / y . , ' / / . • • / ' . < • / /

Fig. I. Pleyel's edition of three trios, two by himself and one by Haydn

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ebewolal. Alb"wesein]aeit

Fig. 2. The first printing of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 8i

what he managed to bring together, but not the extraordinary breadth of coverage ofboth authentic and secondary editions. Nor, as it happens, will it show his special interestin English editions. Of Haydn there are first French or Enghsh editions in parts ofseveral symphonies and manuscript parts of no. 31, a manuscript score of the vocalversion of the Seven Words., the Piano Trios nos. 2, 9, 10 in Forster's first edition andPleyel's edition of nos. 3-5 attributed, partly correctly, to himself (fig. i), a manuscriptof the early Piano Sonatas nos. 10-14, and the Viennese first edition of the Caprice forpiano; of Mozart, manuscript scores of Die Entfuhrung and Cost fan tutte, an otherwiseunrecorded issue of the Sonatas K.10-15, published during his London visit, the firstEnglish edition of the Duet Sonata K.i9d, copies of Viennese editions of the PianoSonatas K.33a-2 and of the Variations K.264 printed entirely from the original plates(with an earlier edition of the latter in the Vms\zx\ Journal de Clavecin), and the Parisianfirst edition in parts of the 'Paris' Symphony K.297; of Beethoven, the earliest knownissue of the piano part of the Third Concerto with five fewer bars in the finale than inlater printings, one of the very few copies of the first printing, with German title-page,of the Piano Sonata Op. 81 (fig. 2), a manuscript copy of the 1812 movement for piano

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trio in B flat not published till 1830, the probable first printing of the Piano Sonata Op.n o and an uncorrected printing of the parts of the String Quartet Op. 130.

Tyson's work on the English editions did not greatly affect his collecting of thesecomposers, which was as comprehensive as he could make it. But its less directconsequences were far-reaching. For one thing he needed to gain a broad understandingof the conditions of music publishing in this country. Much sheet music from the periodhas survived fairly well because the English liked to bind their music (and have theirnames stamped on the front boards). Volumes of chamber music, often annoyinglyseparated from lost companions containing the other parts, were common; still more sowere those containing favourite songs and piano pieces put together by enthusiasticladies or their dutiful daughters. Tyson was able to buy such things for the price oflumber, yet any of them might with luck contain something interesting, amusing or evenimportant along with the dross. The dross in his collection is not the mark of anundiscriminating squirrel, but simply what silted up beside much that was useful whilehe was familiarizing himself with the practice and connections of the more seriouspublishers active at the time.

One thing leads to another. While pursuing his favoured composers throughnewspaper advertisements and, especially, the Stationers' Hall registers, he soon noticedthat there were others worth looking out for. The English editions of Clementi turnedout to be in many cases the only authentic ones and the key to his whole output. His pupilField published his first pieces in Dublin or London (perhaps because of hispsychoanalytical training Tyson was always particularly interested in composers'beginnings), and he maintained his links with England after settling in Russia. Tyson'scollection fills many gaps in the Library's English and continental holdings of both thesecomposers, and the same is true for Mendelssohn and Chopin, whose authentic Englisheditions are as hard to find as they are important. It is good, for example, to have theonly copy that Tyson ever traced of the second piano part for dementi's 'Oeuvre i ', thefirst issues of volumes i and 2 of his Gradus ad Parnassum, and the first English editionsof, among others, Chopin's Second Ballade, Third Scherzo and Fantasy in F minor.

dementi's pupil J. B. Cramer composed some very successful studies for piano whichprovided the impetus for dementi's celebrated Gradus. Tyson evidently becameinterested in the tradition which sprang from these works, for among his piano musicfrom this period important editions of studies are prominent. The composers include,besides Cramer and Clementi themselves, Moscheles, Czerny, Henselt and thosecommissioned by Fetis and Moscheles to contribute to their Me'thode des methodes depiano. There is much chamber music too, by Danzi and Onslow, as well as by FerdinandRies, who while in London helped Beethoven in his negotiations with publishers there.To his large number of English editions of Italian arias Tyson added a volume of editionspublished in Naples, Florence and Rome, some of which may date from the time of thefirst productions. However, the richest background material apart from the Englishconsists of Viennese publications contemporary with Beethoven and Schubert.

Besides those already mentioned the two composers whom Tyson collected most

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assiduously were Weber and Schubert. Here he was very little concerned with Englisheditions, because Weber had few connections with England until the end of his life, andSchubert none at all. For the British Library Tyson's interest in the peripheral bringsconsiderable rewards. Besides two sets of waltzes by Weber that were pubhshedanonymously, and two collections of dances for which the editor, C. F. Muller, obtamedcontributions from Beethoven and Schubert, there is a large quantity of dances and otherpiano music composed by Schubert's associates, such as his publishers Diabelli andLeidesdorf and other minor figures, that helps to place Schubert's less substantial piecesin their musical and social context. The dance music continues beyond his time withsuch composers as the elder and younger Johann Strauss, Joseph Lanner and Otto

Nicolai.Composers' associations with their contemporaries always interested Tyson. His

German and Austrian piano music includes variations by Neefe, Beethoven's teacher inBonn, fugues by Albrechtsberger, from whom he took lessons in Vienna, and a set offugues by Sechter and a Sonata Op. 15 by Anton Halm both dedicated to him. Twonotable German pupils of Clementi are represented by early works dedicated to theirteacher: Ludwig Berger by his Sonata Op. i, and August Klengel by his Concerto Op.4. An association of a slightly different kind involved Tyson himself In 1980 he haddiscovered the autograph of the last forty-five bars of Mozart's Rondo K.386 for pianoand orchestra in the British Library, where it had been miscatalogued after its acquisitionin 1884. This showed that the last twenty-eight bars of the only supposedly completesource for the work, an arrangement by Cipriani Potter for piano solo published in 1837or 1838, had been composed by the arranger, to whom the true ending had not beenavailable. Tyson thought well of Potter's efforts; he managed to find copies of the firsttwo issues of his arrangement (fig. 3), and also the autograph of a short piano piece ofhis own. A scattering of letters which obviously owe their presence to the chances of theantiquarian market form no consistent pattern: the writers include F. H. Barthelemon(who became friendly with Haydn during his London visits), George Thomson (whocommissioned settings of Scottish songs from Haydn, Beethoven, Weber and others) andRossini.

Much more systematic was Tyson's selection of books bearing on the socialbackground of early nineteenth-century Vienna. There are pocket histories and guideswith maps for the use of visitors to the city, a street directory, theatrical and literary year-books and almanacs (a musical supplement to one contains the first edition ofBeethoven's song Der Bardengeist), and a catalogue of the music publisher Artaria.Literary texts include contemporary editions of Herder, Holty, Tiedge and Matthisson,all poets set by both Beethoven and Schubert, early editions of the celebrated comediesof Beaumarchais, two editions of Collin's play Coriolan for which Beethoven wrote hisoverture of the same name, and little word-books of oratorios and choral worksapparently printed for concert-goers. The opera libretti range from the eighteenthcentury to Strauss and Puccini, and even include one seventeenth-century example ofLully.

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TTd. COPVniOKT IS THE TROPERTT OF TKE PTTBLISHEBS

Cipriani Potter's arrangement of Mozart's Rondo K.386

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The more recent libretti do not overstep the bounds of the collection as a whole, whichcarries right through to the mid twentieth century. But after Mendelssohn and Chopmthere is a change. Perhaps partly because increasingly unified arrangements forpublication precluded the appearance of English editions requiring investigation, andpartly because later music held less appeal for him, the representation of first editions isless comprehensive, with fewer secondary editions and very little on the periphery.However, there are some welcome vocal scores and editions of Schumann, Liszt, Brahmsand Chaikovsky, and as usual some unexpected items, such as two sets of early pianopieces by Smetana published in Prague and an obscure early organ piece by Bizet. Onthe whole, this part of the collection would have been more useful to Tyson in seminarsfor illustrating changes in music publishing, and only of limited value for researchpurposes. Not that his flair failed him even in twentieth-century music, as the first issueof the privately-printed first edition in facsimile of Schoenberg's Second String Quartetand a copyist's orchestral score of Stravinsky's Madrid annotated by the composer showclearly enough. And he was always ready to leave the beaten track. On one occasion heattended an auction at which so many Warlock autographs were offered that by the endthey were selling for next to nothing. So he bought some, and gave one to me the nextday as a joke.

In an institution such as the British Museum or British Library, staff need the readersas much as readers need the staff. That was certainly true for the Music Room when Igot to know Tyson about 1962. Since the collections were remarkably rich, covering allwestern countries over a span of four and a half centuries (which have now withremarkable rapidity become five), the very small staff needed ideally in their day-to-daywork an adequate grasp of many things: for a start, the changing notation, language andsocial purposes of music itself over the whole of that period, the bibliographic principlesgoverning printing from type, engraving and lithography, and half a dozen essentiallanguages. Such a requirement left very little time for specialization in particular fields;as is not unusual, the specialized knowledge without which no responsible acquisitionwork or cataloguing can be done had to be picked up at second hand. The usual way offinding out what scholarly work is being done, how far the British Library has helpedor failed it, and how with a little imagination to anticipate its probable future needs, isthrough keeping up with the current literature, and especially the learned journals (theimportance of these latter, in particular, cannot be too strongly emphasized). But in myexperience perhaps more valuable still have been the comments and questions ofinformed readers. Among the many readers for whose help in their respective subjectsI have reason to be grateful, Tyson was unquestionably one of those from whom Ilearned most. He enabled me to correct many errors in the catalogues and, better still,to add more knowledgeably to the important parts of the Library's holdings on whichhe was working. I should like to think that when he decided to benefit the Library somagnificently through his collection he was also aware of how much invaluable help ofan entirely different kind he had already bestowed upon it.

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