Schubert Institute Research Centre

One of the main aims of the founders of the SIUK was for the establishment of a permanent centre dedicated to Schubert research. The first major step towards this has been realised by the establishment of the Schubert Institute Research Centre ('SIRC') as a joint venture with the SIUK and the University of Leeds in Yorkshire. It was formally opened during the celebrations of the Schubert bicentenary on May 17th 1997 by Lord Harewood whose ancestral home, Harewood House, is just a few miles away. Lord Harewood will be known to many by his activities in the field of Opera (he is still the editor of Kobbe's guide), and is a member of SIUK. The ceremony was attended by many SIUK members and guests including Gitta Deutsch, daughter of Otto Erich Deutsch, and Judith Warwick, daughter of Maurice JE Brown.

The purpose of SIRC is to provide a permanent centre in which Schubert materials will be collected, housed and made available for study. It currently comprises of books, scores, letters and other documents and recordings.

The collection is currently (though temporarily) housed in the special collections area of the Brotherton Library, a rather magnificent ediface which is the focus of the university campus. Members of the SIUK are entitled to membership of the library, which allows them full rights to borrow books etc. See the Leeds University Library Catalogue. The general music area of the library has a number of the standard Schubert reference works (see the bibliography), which can be borrowed. It also has a pretty comprehensive collection of Music magazines (not quite a full run of Musical Times, for example, but they do have about 130 years!) which is fascinating to dip into.

Maurice JE Brown

The core of the materials in the SIRC is a collection of books, scores and letters and other documents which belonged to the noted Schubert scholar Maurice JE Brown, and which have been purchased by the institute. Maurice Brown was a science teacher who became a world authority on Schubert, working closely with Otto Erich Deutsch. He published a number of books, including Schubert: A Critical Biography, Essays on Schubert and many articles.

The collection contains a large number of books about Schubert, including all the major works and some rare treasures (e.g. Kreissle von Hellborn, the first biography), many copies of Schubert's music and correspondence files, including of the order of 750 letters from Otto Erich Deutsch.

The collection continues to grow with further donations from members authors and publishers and, when funds are available, purchases by the institute.

I've now had several visits to the centre, getting totally engrossed in the contents. The collection is a treasure trove for the Schubert fan or scholar. Mind you, I did discover a fascinating letter from MJEB to his wife (it was being used as a bookmark!), written from Otto Deutsch's home in Cambridge in the early fifties. In this letter he describes Deutsch's collection as a treasure trove, so one wonders what that must have contained. Unfortunately, Deutsch's collection seems to have disappeared, though it is rumoured that it is collecting dust in a corner of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.

The collection has only recently been received at Leeds, and there is not yet a formal catalogue of the contents, though one is in progress. The catalogue of the letters which is in progress has a single small piece of paper for each writer. This pile is 3 inches thick! More details of the letters are given here.

I'm also doing a brief catalogue of the other contents. As I make more trips, and explore the contents more fully, I will try to add to this. One of the things I have spent some time investigating is the correspondence, and other paperwork, in connection with MJEB's book Essays on Schubert. This is described in more detail on another page.