My name is Elizabeth, and as Michael mentioned in his introduction, I am the new Music Catalog Librarian at NIU. I work with the sheet music and audio recordings that Michael Duffy receives for the Music Library by adding the information to the online library catalog.
I love my job because I get to work with music every day. I always learn something new, or see something exciting, or find a new composer whose music I end up loving. However, some days are extra special because I get to see something really spectacular.
Like many of you, I took many music theory, form and analysis, and music history courses and learned about the more important works in the Western music canon. As interesting as listening, analyzing, and learning about those pieces was, there’s something special about seeing a composition in the composer's hand that makes the history and theory behind it come alive.
The Music Library at Northern Illinois University has recently acquired a facsimile of a manuscript of Richard Wagner’s manuscript of his opera Tristan und Isolde (1865), which means that we now have a copy of the finished score in Wagner's hand.
When I received it and opened it, I was astonished. In my mind I could hear the beginning of the famous overture (with that infamous non-resolving suspension), and see Wagner's effort as he created one of the most significant operas in Western music history.
Because I'm a soprano, I also had to immediately find Isolde's famous Liebestod, the start of where that unresolved suspension finally receives resolution (it resolves at "In des Welt-Atems wehendem All," when Isolde dies and the ill-fated lovers can finally attain peace). To see the exact spot where the orchestra fades into the background and Isolde begins singing "Mild und leise" gave me chills, and it's one of the many reasons why I can't imagine a better job than the one I have.
The Tristan und Isolde facsimile manuscript score can't be taken out of the Music Library, but it can be viewed anytime the library is open (the call no. is ML96.5.W346 T7 2012). Stop by and see this remarkable work, or any of the other fascinating manuscripts that NIU has acquired!
