Music Division

The Music Division's special collections include the manuscripts and papers of many composers who wrote for film. This page outlines how to navigate these collections and their materials.

Special Collections Overview

The Music Division holds over six hundred named special collections in music, theater, and dance. Collections vary in size from fewer than a dozen items to more than half a million. Many of these collections are processed and have finding aids online. Others are in varying stages of processing and may have guides, inventories, or print finding aids available on-site.

Find special collections through two primary gateways:

Alphabetical List of Special Collections in the Music Division
The Performing Arts Reading Room website provides an alphabetical list of the Music Division's special collections with links to finding aids that describe the background and content of those collections.
Search Finding Aids Database
The Search Finding Aids Database allows you to keyword search across all of the Library's published finding aids. To limit your search to the Music Division's collections, select "Performing Arts" from the drop-down menu when searching. Keep in mind, however, that there may be relevant special collections to consult in the Library's Recorded Sound Research Center, Moving Image Research Center, Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room, Prints & Photographs Reading Room, and other reading rooms.

Access Note: Some collections are housed off-site and require advance notice to retrieve. Contact us using our Ask a Librarian service if you have questions about researching a specific collection.

Highlighted Special Collections for Film Music

The following collections include materials relevant to research in film music. Provided links are for finding aids (descriptive documents of collection contents) or collection-level catalog records if finding aids are not yet completed. Both finding aids and catalog records contain collection content summaries.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco papers [finding aid]
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer who composed over 200 film scores for MGM Studios. Included are music manuscripts, scripts, and files related to film studios.
Aaron Copland collection [finding aid]
Copland scored the films The City, The Heiress, The North Star, Of Mice and Men, Our Town, The Red Pony, and Something Wild. The collection includes his manuscript scores, sketches, scripts, correspondence, and other relevant ephemera.
Charles Fox papers [catalog record]
Fox composed the musical scores for over 100 motion pictures and television films, hundreds of award winning popular songs, as well as works for ballet and orchestra. The collection contains music scores and sketches, cue sheets, session notes, correspondence, and photographs.
Laura Karpman Papers [catalog record]
Laura Anne Karpman is an American composer for film, television, video games, theater and concert music. The collection contains audio-visual materials, media, music manuscripts, sketches, and other paper ephemera documenting the composer's work in film, television, video games, opera, and other music genres.
Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine collection [finding aid]
Danny Kaye (1911-1987) was an American actor, singer, dancer, comedian, and humanitarian. His wife, Sylvia Fine (1913-1991), was an American lyricist, composer, writer, lecturer, and producer. The collection, which documents their lives and careers, contains printed and manuscript music, scripts, correspondence, business and financial papers, promotional and publicity materials, speeches, oral history transcripts, photographs, scrapbooks, programs, posters, honors, and realia.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold collection [finding aid]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a composer and pianist noted for his orchestral works, operas, concertos, film scores, piano music, and chamber music. The collection consists primarily of holograph and copyist music manuscripts that span his entire compositional output, as well as sketches, fragments, libretti, and film cue sheets. Many works not in Korngold's hand include his annotations. The collection also contains non-music materials such as correspondence, financial papers, photographs, and programs.
Alfred Newman film music manuscripts [catalog record]
The collection includes several dozen manuscripts that are in a combination of hands: some in Newman's hand, some in the hands of identified and unidentified orchestrators, with a mixture of full scores, short scores, and sketches, including instrumental parts for a some pieces.
Henry Mancini Papers [finding aid]
The collection contains original scores and printed music for Mancini's films, television shows, recordings, and concert music. Other materials include project files, business papers, photographs, correspondence, scripts, writings, programs, promotional materials, scrapbooks, clippings, biographical materials, and other items that document his life and career.
David Raksin papers [catalog record]
Raksin worked regularly as a film composer until the early 1970s; his body of about 100 scores includes perhaps 20 works that rank among Hollywood's best. The collection includes music manuscripts, photographs, papers, and recordings.
Richard Robbins Collection [catalog record]
Robbins is known for his evocative film scores for the films of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. The collection consists of music, scripts, articles, papers and research, audio-visual material, pictures, programs, and posters, mostly relating to the scores for almost all of Robbins's output.
Winston Sharples music manuscripts [finding aid]
Winston Sharples was an American composer best known for his work with animated short films, such as Casper, the Friendly Ghost, Popeye the Sailor, and Jeepers and Creepers. The collection consists of manuscript particells (piano scores with dialogue and cues), scores, parts, and lyric sheets related to his professional engagements.

Film Music: A Research Guide

Performing Arts: Ask a Librarian

Music Division

Special Collections Overview

Highlighted Special Collections for Film Music