Skip to main content
COLLECTION Identifier: MS Mus 280

Fromm Music Foundation scores and recordings

Overview

Scores and recordings of Fromm Music Foundation-supported compositions, with a few recordings, manuscripts, and print items associated with Paul Fromm.

Dates

  • Creation: 1943-2019

Creator

Extent

14.25 linear feet (66 boxes)
3.5 Gigabytes (5 CDs)

This collection of manuscript and print scores represents work by composers receiving commissions from the Fromm Music Foundation. Scores dating from before the Foundation's founding are presumed to have been in Paul Fromm's personal collection, as were miscellaneous manuscript and printed items. Recordings of some compositions are present as phonograph records, audiotapes, and CDs; those mentioned in the compositions series have been moved to Series III: Recordings in other formats.

These are preliminary lists imported from the original database, unauthoritative, incomplete, and intended only for reference use.

Biographical / Historical

Paul Fromm (1906-1987) was a Jewish Chicago wine merchant and financial backer of performing arts. He was an early supporter of contemporary classical music in his native Germany. Forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1938, he immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago where he co-founded wine import companies. In 1952, when his businesses were secure, he founded the Fromm Music Foundation. The Foundation awarded grants to young composers, the choices made by members of the Foundation staff.

Arrangement

Arranged in four series:

  1. I. Scores.
  2. II. Phonograph records.
  3. III. Recordings in other formats.
  4. IV. Papers.

While the bulk of the collection is arranged alphabetically by composer, researchers should use keyword searching to be sure to find all items for a given name or title.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Special equipment or surrogate required; consult Houghton staff.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

*92M-37, *92M-38. Fromm Music Foundation, Department of Music, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; received: 1991 and ongoing. *90M-52, transferred from Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, 1991.

Related Materials

Related collections are held by the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard University, and the Harvard University Archives.

Separated Materials

Born-digital material has been separated: Storage305BD

General note

Includes audiovisual and/or digital media: CDs; phonograph records; and audiotapes.

Processing Information

Processed by: Elizabeth A. Falsey, Melanie Wisner, and Andrew Whitacre.

Creator

Title
Fromm Music Foundation, sponsor. Fromm Music Foundation scores and recordings (MS Mus 280): Guide.
Status
completed
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00175

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440