GALICIAN MUSIC SOCIETY IN LVIV AND ITS PRESERVING AND ARCHIVING ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The article studies one of the important socio-cultural functions of music societies in the XIX – early XX century – preserving and archiving on the example of the Galician Musical Society. Thanks to it till now the information about musical life of different cities and countries had been preserved, voluminous music and book funds had been formed. This capacious concept includes all activities of the societies, aimed at promotion of their activities in the press, publishing reviews, systematization of book and music production, creation of collections, libraries, that is, all forms of preserving the memory of societies for posterity. This aspect of Galician musical culture had not received much attention in research, despite the wide range of works dedicated to the activities of music and cultural-educational societies. GMS, and from 1919 – PMS left an invaluable collection of music scores, books, manuscripts, copies, textbooks, correspondence, plans of building its own premises, notarial documents –"legati" (donation records) so called hereditary records of the property for the benefit of the Society, minutes, reports published annually and other important documents. Some of them, especially from the first funds, had been lost forever in the fire of 1848, some remained and are kept in Lviv's libraries and archives. Bigger part of them which began to accumulate after 1852 is located in several places in Lviv. A great part of music scores, manuscripts, some correspondence is kept in the library of Lviv National music Academy named after M. Lysenko, a small part of the unique music manuscripts are stored in the National Scientific Library named after V. Stefanyk, much less – in the library of Lviv National university named after I. Franko. 30 folders with unique GMS-PMS documentation (hand-written and printed Statutes, regulations, correspondence with heads of Galicia, correspondence with police, handwritten meeting notes, private letters, invitations, financial accounts, reports, building plans of GMS premises, "legati" and the like) are kept in the private archive of Leszek and Teresa Mazepa. In the first years of its activity – 1838-1848 – GMS had collected considerable funds of sheet music and books, as well as valuable musical instruments. The society, as the Conservatory itself as well, for over 60 years had not its own premises and was a subtenant of various, often inconvenient for this purpose buildings, for long time occupied a part of the premises of the Skarbek theater, People's House, etc., which adversely affected the integrity of the library. Officially the library of GMS was founded in 1876, when the Society initiated the main directions of its activities: creation of fund-raising committee for construction of their own building and opening of sheet music and books library of the Conservatory. One of the most important material achievement of GMS was a musical library which later, reflecting the centennial concert repertoire, consisted of tens of thousands of music scores. GMS-PMS music library was large, it had been gathered through a century (1838-1939) and consisted of numerous collections of printed music scores, hand copies and manuscripts, booth of individual musicians and musical groups (Conservatory, orchestra, administrations of the men's and women's choirs), departments. Each new GMS director enriched the library with new acquisitions. The GMS activity in the sphere of accumulation and conservation of valuable artistic heritage was very important and had practical significance for the conservation of cultural heritage for future generations. Modern humanitarian discourse contributes to the study of this field of activity of musical and cultural-educational societies in the context of the dynamics of musical life in various regions of Ukraine. Research of their history, analysis of multi-directional activity in our time is a necessary factor of the augment of an overall picture of the development of musical culture of Ukraine and development of new conceptual frameworks of this process.