International Music Library
The International Music Library was a central facility of the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR .
It owned extensive sheet music collections of Eastern European music as well as the collection and rental of non-printed works by contemporary composers from the GDR . In this respect it appeared partly as a publisher mostly on a commission basis. Today parts of the holdings are in various libraries in Brandenburg and Saxony , a smaller part was lost or scattered in the post-reunification period . The European Center for the Arts Hellerau is responsible for a larger inventory as well as research into the history and central registration .
history
The forerunner of the IMB was the "Interallied Music Library" founded in Berlin in 1946 by decision of the Allies . It served as a provisional supply of music for the orchestra during the rebuilding of Berlin's musical life after 1945. After the Berlin blockade in 1948, the collection was supplied exclusively with music, performance materials and literature from Eastern European countries by the Soviet Union . In addition, the library opened up to the composers of the GDR for the reproduction and rental of non-printed works. In 1968 the IMB was subordinated to the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR . Over the years the IMB has developed into the largest special library for East German and Eastern European music of the 20th century as well as a central lending library for orchestral material from the Eastern Bloc with a media inventory of around 36,000 volumes.
After the dissolution of the composers' association and the privatization of the association's own publishing house Neue Musik , the IMB first came to the university library of the Berlin University of Music "Hanns Eisler" . Some of the stock was lost or scattered in the immediate aftermath of the reunification. The main inventory could be provisionally cataloged with the help of the original card catalog. When problems with property rights arose in 1999, the holdings were returned to Verlag Neue Musik . In 2002 he decided to hand over the collection free of charge. As a result, most of the IMB came into the possession of the Dresden Center for Contemporary Music (DZzM) in Dresden and a smaller part came into the possession of the Lausitz Cottbus / Senftenberg University of Applied Sciences . After the founding of the European Center for the Arts in Hellerau , part of the holdings was transferred to the Saxon State Library - State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) (approx. 8000 media).
In addition to prints, the library also comprised large stocks of original photocopied bound manuscript material in Bach format , including the associated 35 mm microfilms , which today are of great value in terms of production, as well as a smaller inventory of sound carrier material, records, and tapes. The separation of the former holdings from the holdings of the composers' association and the Neue Musik publishing house is not always clear and therefore it is often difficult to find out where it is.
Current state
The history of the IMB is being researched historically and systematically in the library of the European Center for the Arts in Hellerau , and the existing holdings are made accessible. After extensive restoration of the inventory after storage damage, a digital complete directory of the original inventory of the IMB is created and the existing orchestral performance material is made available for public lending.
Individual evidence
- ^ Yearbook of the libraries, archives and information facilities of the German Democratic Republic. Leipzig 13.1987. ISSN 0075-2215
- ^ History of the IMB
- ^ Information from the DZzM library