Jefferson's Musical Legacy

摘要

Before Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library of 6,487 volumes to the government in 1815 to "recommence" the function of the Congressional Library, the holdings of which had been burned by British forces during their occupation of Washington the previous year, the Library's music collections consisted of only a small number of musical compositions. The music-related works included in Jefferson's collection—to which the Library's Music Division traces its origins—consisted of 13 books about music literature, pedagogy and theory. Among these titles is an annotated copy of Francesco Geminiani's "The Art of Playing on the Violin" (1751).