Collection areas

Hanson-Dyer collection

The Hanson-Dyer Collection comprises European music imprints, including many first editions, as well as unique music manuscripts from the 15th to the early 19th century. It was collected in Paris by Melbourne-born expatriate Louise Hanson-Dyer (1884-1962) from 1929 to 1931 and transferred to Melbourne in 2005. This collection of 245 items includes French operatic works, British publications, works of the Italian renaissance and books on music theory. The collection includes rare volumes of instrumental music and a number of fine instrumental ‘methods’. Unique items from the Hanson-Dyer collection have been the basis for significant musicological studies in recent years.

Search the collection via our catalogue and consult the published catalogue by Denis Herlin, Catalogue de la collection musicale Hanson-Dyer, Université de Melbourne (2006).

In 2013, the Monaco-based music publisher Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre (Lyrebird Press), established by Louise Hanson-Dyer in 1932, closed and its archive arrived at the University. It includes business records and correspondence, including letters from leading composers, artists and writers. There are also personal papers, Louise Hanson-Dyer’s memorabilia, her own library and some artworks. The archive features a “President’s Collection” (previously shelved together in Monaco) comprising one copy of almost every one of the Press’s print publications; a substantial collection of other music manuscript scores, many in the composer’s hand; and printed scores and performance parts. There are also 78 and 33 1/3 rpm audio recordings, publication proofs and press clippings. The Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre archive promises significant new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most important music publishing houses and is an important resource for researchers.

Rare Music’s interactive data visualisation, Louise Hanson-Dyer’s Professional Network, prepared in collaboration with the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform, offers a graphic representation of those Hanson-Dyer engaged in her creative endeavours—performers, conductors, visual artists, composers, musicologists, editors, writers, artisans and others—from the time she left Melbourne (1927) until her death in 1962.

While Hanson-Dyer’s personal library, the Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre reference library, the President’s Collection and the music for publication and performance are searchable through the University Library catalogue, the business and personal papers of the Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre archive are found in the University of Melbourne Archives catalogue.

Musicians’ Collections

Rare Music holds a number of significant collections associated with individual musicians. The most comprehensive of these is the professional archive of internationally renowned French horn virtuoso, Barry Tuckwell. Other instrumentalists’ collections are the Jim and Hugo Stockigt Collection and the Thomas White Collection, both preponderantly of clarinet music. Smaller collections of important instrumental music are associated with Tasmanian flautist F.E. Burbury and Melbourne violinists August di Gilio and Paul McDermott.

A collection of orchestral scores and sets previously owned by conductor John Hopkins who had a long and distinguished association with the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, can also be found in the collection.