History of the music collection

Already at the beginning of the 16th century, numerous permanent singers and instrumentalists were in the service of Landgrave Philip (reigned since 1509, independent 1518-1567) and contributed to the development of a lively musical life at the landgravial court.

The oldest manuscripts of the Kassel collection with music in the Franco-Flemish style also date from the time of Philip, more precisely from the 1530s. They are mainly in the hand of the court Kapellmeister Johannes Heugel (ca. 1510-1584/85, probably at the Kassel court from 1535).

Until his old age and into the reign of Landgrave Wilhelm IV (1567-1592), Heugel left his mark on the style of the court chapel, which he furnished with his own compositions and numerous music prints and copies of pieces by other composers. - Most of Heugel's own works as well as the copies have been preserved.

Landgrave Moritz the Learned (reigned 1592-1627) was highly musical and had learned a solid mastery of contemporary compositional techniques from the court Kapellmeister Georg Otto. The musical materials acquired during Moritz's reign still form the extensive and extremely valuable foundation of the Kassel music collection.

During a journey, Landgrave Moritz discovered the musical talent of the young Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) and thereupon brought him to the Kassel Collegium Mauritianum as a scholarship student. There Schütz received an excellent scholastic and musical education before, at the Landgrave's instigation, he expanded his musical skills with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice between 1609 and 1612.

Even after his final transfer from Kassel to the Dresden court of Johann Georg I of Saxony (from about 1617), Heinrich Schütz sent copies and autograph copies of his own compositions to Moritz the Learned and his successors until the end of his life. As a result, the Kassel State Library today has the largest collection of Schütz autographs in the world.

After the end of the Thirty Years' War and with the advent of the independent government of Wilhelm VI (1650-1663), the court orchestra reached new heights. The young landgrave, who like his grandfather Moritz was an active musician and composer, opened the Kassel court to current trends in high baroque instrumental and vocal music and had extensive musical material procured from Vienna and Paris.

The music collection from the heyday of the landgravial court orchestra during the reign of Landgraves Philipp, Wilhelm IV, Moritz and Wilhelm VI, which spanned about a century, offers diverse and first-rate sheet music and source material on the music of the 16th/17th centuries. Above all, the extensive collection of printed music contained in this collection reflects the development of German as well as Italian music of this period and their manifold relationships to each other.

Landgrave Karl († 1730), who came to power in 1670 after a long period of guardianship, continued the line of musically gifted and interested regents in Kassel. Karl was a good viola da gamba player and therefore attracted renowned gambists such as Willem Deutekom and August Kühnel to his court. They enriched the court chapel's collection of sheet music with many viola da gamba pieces.

While Charles promoted Italian opera in addition to viola da gamba music, this was successively supplanted by French opera under his grandson Frederick II (reigned 1760-1785). At the court of Frederick, who in 1753 had inherited all the music of his uncle Maximilian, who was extremely interested in music (he had his own small orchestra), a diverse musical life developed. Frederick II, who had converted to the Catholic faith, also had Catholic church music composed for the court church and promoted ballet and opera as well as chamber music.

Surprisingly, there is hardly a trace of the music from the time of Charles and Frederick II in the holdings of the state library today, although they must have been available in large numbers in view of the intensive musical life at their courts.

From the second half of the 19th century onwards, the musical culture of Kassel revived under Electors Wilhelm II (reigned 1821-1847) and Friedrich Wilhelm I († 1875). This renewed heyday is closely associated with the work of conductor, violinist and composer Louis Spohr, who had been appointed court conductor in the city in 1822.

After Spohr's death in 1859 and the transfer of Hesse-Kassel to Prussia as a result of the dissolution of the Electorate in 1866, the rising middle classes finally replaced the aristocratic sovereigns in Kassel in their leading role in musical life.

In the historical music collection of the state library, the 19th century is represented by a collection of Casselana (about 530 titles, mainly prints) and above all by the partial estate of Louis Spohr.

In the 1980s in particular, the acquisition of historical music by the State Library was accelerated. Around 1000 pieces, mainly chamber music pieces, were acquired. The focus of these new acquisitions is on prints from the first half of the 19th century.

The guiding principle here was the consolidation of existing holdings and the rarity of the material: many of the pieces were not available for Germany or internationally in RISM at the time of purchase.

Among the most remarkable parts of the segment is a collection of works by aristocratic composers of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Also acquired was extensive sheet music of the chamber music of George Onslow and printed music of nearly all the string quartets of Ignaz Pleyel and Boccerini.