In February 2006, a priceless collection of autograph and working manuscripts, sketches, engraver’s proofs, and other musical treasures was given to The Juilliard School by its chairman, Bruce Kovner. Called the Juilliard Manuscript Collection, it comprises 138 items, including several headline-making manuscripts, sketchbooks, and printed editions with extensive composer markings. Among the collection’s holdings are the final working manuscript of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony prepared for the printer, with extensive revisions, corrections, and alterations by the composer; the autograph manuscript of the final scene of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; and an extensively worked autograph manuscript of the last 50 or so bars of the first movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. (View a complete list of items in the Juilliard Manuscript Collection.)

Likely to become a magnet for study and performance practice by musicians worldwide, the collection will be housed in a specially designed and newly-constructed scholar’s reading room at the School in 2009, when Juilliard is expected to complete an extensive campus renovation. At that time, it will become available for scholarly research—many items for the first time—as well as for performance opportunities and display.

But scholars, performers, and music lovers interested in seeing the extraordinary collection do not have to wait until 2009. A state-of-the-art Web site, created in spring 2007, contains high quality digital images of most of the manuscripts in the collection. By logging onto www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org the user can examine the tiniest details of the scores, thanks to the site’s use of “Zoomify” technology.