I had such a wonderful time on my Agnes Tyrrell research trip. I have new questions and new answers and new friends and about a thousand photographs of manuscript pages; many are from already published works like the incredible Grand Sonata, but lots are from unpublished songs. I’ll be working with a student this summer—we got research support from the Kolbe foundation—on notating the songs so that we can publish them. This entry will be sort of a babble brain dump about the archive.
I’m so happy with my visit to the Department of Music History at the Moravian Museum (MZM); the staff was so incredibly generous and helpful. I didn’t know what I would find: I didn’t know if my access would be severely limited, or if the archive would be a cardboard box full of coffee-stained unreadable fragments. But everything is beautifully catalogued and organized and kept in acid-free paper. I’m so grateful to the librarians of the past (and today!) for their careful stewardship. It was really moving to see the handwritten cards from the catalog: they had a stamp with a staff, so each card has handwritten incipits of the music as well as the title and other information. Just beautiful. I don’t have permission, by the way, to publish images of documents from the archive, so I won’t be including them, but I’m delighted to report that they generously gave me permission for publication and performance of the work once it’s transcribed.
It was such a thrill to hold Agnes’s manuscripts in my hands and get to know her handwriting. Her musical notation is incredibly clear—she was definitely writing for posterity. It’s harder to read her German handwriting (most of her writing is in German and English); I asked a Viennese pal to take a look, and she said she couldn’t read the old cursive “but maybe my grandmother could.”It’s fun to see Agnes playing with different fancy signatures—I love the calligraphy A she landed on—and to get to recognize her handwriting. Figuring out the texts will be a challenge but at least the musical intentions are unmistakable.
I feel like I got to know her personality better, too. She was ambitious: I knew that from her music, but it’s fun to see that confirmed in her words. In one song (where she wrote the lyrics, in English) she imagines gaining “the gold that comes with an artist’s fame and all the pride of a deathless name.” But she didn’t take herself too seriously: on one title page she wrote “translated by the honourable and noble lady Agnes Tyrrell, a very dear little thing, with an ugly face, but who is notwithstanding as industrious as any living creature.” When I saw that, I exclaimed out loud (and got a good laugh from the librarians in the reading room. Did I mention I love librarians?)
It was also great to see some of her theory homework,working out counterpoint and harmonic exercises. It’s obvious from her music that she got excellent training, but it’s different to actually see the school notes.
I got photos of the manuscripts for the 12 etudes, and also of the letter from Liszt, which was how I first found Agnes in the first place. I had what might have been my most vindicating moment of my life as a pianist (another moment where the librarians laughed at me for gasping). Liszt suggested some fingerings for some of the etudes, and I couldn’t wait to see what he would suggest for the first one. It’s in thirds, and there are about five different sort of okay fingerings but I can’t find the one fingering that actually feels any better than the others. And Liszt couldn’t decide either! He suggested two possibilities and wrote “oder(?)” [or?]. So if Liszt—probably the greatest pianist who ever lived—couldn’t find fingerings either, I don’t feel so bad for not being able to decide on one. I think I’m just going to use Agnes’s suggestion in that spot.
So what did I get photos of? The manuscript to the great Grand Sonata and the 12 etudes, and also lots of songs. There’s a full symphony, which also has a piano reduction, so that will be interesting to think about how she envisions orchestral colors at the piano. I haven’t played through it yet. There’s also a mazurka which she did publish—it’s a cheerful show piece that will be a fun encore—and she also orchestrated that, and I think it will be a really nice addition to the orchestral repertoire. Sadly, there’s no chamber music beyond the string quartet and a couple of vocal duets and trios—I was so hoping for a piano trio or some string and piano sonatas, but no. But there are lots of songs—at least an album’s worth—and I think there are some smaller solo piano pieces that could be accessible for younger students.
