The Excellencies of Musick exhibition opens at the National Library showcasing rare books, prints and manuscripts

29 Nov 2024

Title page of a landscape oriented printed book: ornate engraving featuring musical performers. Scene is framed by theatre curtains.

James Hook, Guida di Musica: Being a Complete Book of Instructions for Beginners on the Harpsichord or Piano Forte, nla.cat-vn8650184

A new exhibition is opening at the National Library of Australia, featuring exquisite and intriguing rare books, prints and manuscripts relating to music. These were printed or handwritten in Britain between 1636 and 1850. The Excellencies of Musick: Highlights from the Jamie and Michael Kassler Collection exhibition is open from 3 December 2024. Entry is free. 

Enter the musical world of Stuart and Georgian Britain, a world of concert-going, music-makers and thinkers, of printers and publishers. The exhibition features rare works by famous composers, theorists and philosophers, as well as portraits, engraved tickets and trade cards. Highlights include a broadside advertising an 1817 performance of Handel’s masterpiece, The Messiah, and a libretto of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, still in its original sewn binding of 1803.

‘The items in the exhibition have many stories to tell,’ said Rare Books and Music Curator Dr Susannah Helman. ‘Some of the items are very rare. They include tickets and trade cards that tell of small moments in the lives of people living centuries ago. Other items in the exhibition are quite beautiful examples of printing techniques—engraving, lithography and mezzotint.’

Items in The Excellencies of Musick exhibition are drawn from the collection of musicologists and longstanding National Library patrons Dr Jamie Kassler and Dr Michael Kassler. Assembled over half a century, their collection includes books on the practice of music, intonation and acoustics, theories of harmony and composition, histories of music, biographies of musicians, dictionaries of musical terms, and music periodicals. The Kassler Collection greatly extends and deepens the National Library’s collections of rare prints and books, music, pictures and manuscripts from the musicological world of 17th to early 19th century Britain. The Collection is being transferred to the National Library in stages and has enormous research potential. 

‘The Kassler Collection is the working library of two people passionate about the history of music in Britain. The Excellencies of Musick exhibition offers an introduction to this research collection,’ said Dr Helman.

The National Library’s rare books collections include around 158,000 titles, with more in its maps, pictures and Asian collections. These printed collections date from the earliest years of moveable metal type in Europe (early 1450s) to the 2020s.  The National Library’s music collections are also rich and include both early European printed scores toand the manuscript scores of great names in Australian music.

The Excellencies of Musick exhibition will delight anyone, especially those interested in the history of music and the history and technology of the book and printing. The free exhibition can be found in the collection-in-focus area of the Treasures Gallery at the National Library of Australia until August 2025.  