John Ward and His Magnificent Collection

Published and distributed by Golden Legend, Inc.

This book celebrates the second career of John Milton Ward following his retirement in 1985 as William Mason Powell Chair of the Music Department of Harvard University. Since that time Ward has devoted his life to collecting rare music scores and related original editions. All have been donated to Harvard University libraries. Ward’s collections on early opera and ballet are now of international importance, although they are not yet well known to music and theatre historians. Even less well known are the many donations of music from non-Western cultures. John Ward and his Magnificent Collection presents an interview and fourteen essays by scholars, friends and book dealers that will describe the scope of these collections and the character of the man who created and then donated them.

The secondary purpose of this book is to demonstrate the value of original editions as opposed to facsimiles and modern reprints or digital reproductions. Readers of this book will necessarily pause in their headlong rush toward digitization when they realize that original objects carry a greater validity than any other type of evidence. Along with Ward, the contributors believe that no single score—not even the composer’s own manuscript—allows future scholars to fully understand music from the past. We must also study later editions, variants and annotated copies, and even ephemeral material, in order to see the many transmutations a work of music has undergone over time.

Contents

John Ward as Educator, Collector and Curator

Sir Curtis Price, Origins of the King’s Theatre Collection
Joseph G. Price, An Innocent Bystander.
John and Jude Lubrano, La Chasse et Le Professeur.
Carl B. Schmidt, A Personal Recollection - John Milton Ward as Educator
Christel Wallbaum, Letter to John Ward

The Collections

Andrea Cawelti, Introduction to the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collections at Harvard University
Virginia Danielson, A Passage to India. John Ward and the Whole World of Music
Lisa Cox, A French Journey

The Ward Collections at Work

Philip Gossett, Il barbiere di Siviglia and the John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection
at the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Morris S. Levy, From Vienna to Naples to Cambridge. The Ward Collection, Robert von Gallenberg, and Furio Camillo
Hugh MacDonald, Bizet’s La Jolie Fille de Perth in Print and in Performance
Lowell Lindgren, Handel’s Significance within The King’s Theatre Collection of John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward
Richard MacNutt, The First Editions in Vocal Score of Weber’s Der Freischütz and Euryanthe
D. W. Krummel, Lutebooks on the Loose


John Ward and His Magnificent Collection. Published and distributed by Golden Legend, Inc. Hardbound, 168pp, illustrated. Designed by Steven Rachwal, printed by Typecraft Wood and Jones, Pasadena, California. 200 copies. Price: $ 75

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