Finzi Music Collection

The Finzi Music Collection was given to the University of Reading Library by Mrs Joy Finzi in 1981. It is largely the working collection (apart from the miniature scores) of her husband, the composer, Gerald Finzi, though it also contains music given to him by the daughter of Sir Hubert Parry.

It consists of about 900 books and 7,000 items of music. The Collection contains a wide selection of classics, and a considerable number of works by Finzi's contemporaries, several of whom gave him copies of their scores. However, it contains only a selection of Finzi's own published works and none of his manuscripts which are held by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. His collection of eighteenth century music was presented to St Andrews University.

Gerald Finzi's literary collection is housed at Special Collections Services. Find out more about the Finzi Book Room.

Mrs Finzi also gave the Library some 700 sets of orchestral parts accumulated by the Newbury String Players, a group formed and conducted by Gerald Finzi and later his son, Christopher. Its repertoire consists mainly of works for string orchestra, but does include some works for slightly larger groups.

Catalogues

The books are catalogued on the Unicorn catalogue. All the music is catalogued, but a large proportion of it is still to be listed on Unicorn. Material not yet on Unicorn is listed in a card catalogue.

Access

Most of the Collection is kept in our Off-site Store - see Requesting items from Store and Closed Access collections for information on getting these items. Members of the University may borrow most items.

A small part of the collection is on closed-access at Special Collections Services. These items cannot be borrowed.

We do not lend items from the Finzi Music Collection on inter-library loan, but sets from the Newbury String Players can be borrowed by other academic libraries provided the borrower meets all the costs involved.

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