TheLibrary of Congress Hits the Road: Part II

By Marion Lignana Rosenberg

The archives of the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation and the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation contain scores and correspondence relating to 20th-century classics such as Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony and George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children. The world premiere performance by Leontyne Price of Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs took place in the Coolidge Auditorium and is available on a “Great Performances from the Library of Congress” CD on Bridge. Drawing on more than 4,000 recordings by the likes of Dorothy Maynor, Roland Hayes, and Henryk Szeryng, the series testifies to the incomparable breadth of the Library’s collection and musical offerings. In 2005-06, the Library celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Coolidge concert series with dozens of events, including performances by the Juilliard and Kuijken Quartets, recitals of songs by Ricky Ian Gordon and Jake Heggie, evenings honoring Morton Subotnick and Roger Reynolds, and films scored by Toru Takemitsu—all free of charge.

In Billington’s view, there are also eminently practical reasons for taking manuscripts, films, photographs, and recordings to the public via the Internet and in more tangible ways. A former professor at Harvard and Princeton Universities, Billington is aware that artifacts can have an unforgettable visceral impact on learners. He has vivid memories of a visit to Washington as a small boy, when seeing the words of Lincoln’s second inaugural address carved into the Lincoln Memorial “made [his] hair stand on end.” Decades later, when he found himself in the presence of the 16th President’s autograph manuscript, he decided that “everyone ought to get a chance to see this in Lincoln’s own hand.”

Billington cites his experience with on-site training of librarians and teachers at the Library. “One of the best things we offered them was simply seeing original items. There’s something thrilling about that. It begins a chain of enthusiasm that educators pass on in intangible ways to the young people they’re teaching. That’s what we want to help communities do all over, to feed the enthusiasm that’s already there.”

For Billington, then, the “Song of America” tour and its related undertakings are part of his “practical imperative to develop a national constituency for the Library.” Students and educators will have a chance to hear Thomas Hampson sing with his inimitable eloquence, say, Harry T. Burleigh’s Ethiopia Saluting the Colors,” a setting of a poem by Walt Whitman in which an old black slave woman pays homage to the Union flag. They will be able to examine the sheet music of Burleigh’s song and photographs of the composer and Whitman. They will have the opportunity to ponder connections among these palpably real experiences and objects and the history of their own families and communities. They will be trained in preservation techniques and the use of primary sources. And they will be invited to create new artifacts of their own that will become part of the Library’s permanent collection.

Indeed, creativity is a key force behind the Tour and the Library itself, which Billington describes as “the largest collection ever assembled of American creativity.” Billington points out the connections between the creation of the United States and the arts. Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the likely designer of the original Stars and Stripes, was also America’s first published songwriter. One of the earliest books published in the English colonies was the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, a rendering in verse of psalms to be sung during worship.

Billington is determined that, in years to come, the public will grasp ever more firmly the notion of the Library of Congress as the home of American creativity and not simply a resource for legislators and scholars. A tunnel is under construction connecting the Capitol Visitor Center (scheduled for completion by early 2007) to the Library of Congress. One Library official remarks, “This gives us a remarkable opportunity to create some magic at this end of the tunnel. People are going to learn about history and the legislative branch over there; but once they come here, this is the people’s net record of our nation’s culture.” The Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Virginia, expected to open in 2006, will have more than 50 miles of shelves to house one million films and three million sound and radio recordings. (Billington points out with well-earned pride that the Library has carried out three-quarters of the film preservation undertaken by archives in the United States.)

Billington sees the Library’s holdings in music and all branches of knowledge as vital for people in the United States and all over the world—“essential for democracy, intelligent governance, and international understanding. We’ve got to live by our wits more than our weapons. The human race needs information to iron out its problems.”

Marion Lignana Rosenberg has written for The New York Times, Time Out New York, Newsday, and Playbill. Her essay “Re-visioning Callas” won a 2004 Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York.