The International Association of Music Libraries (IAML) was officially founded almost 50 years ago in Paris, July 1951. This seems an appropriate time to look back to those early years.

For anyone who knew the individuals concerned – Blume, Fédorov, Halm, Zehntner, Azevedo, Torrefranca, Schmieder, Hill and King amongst others – reading through documents surviving from the early years of our Association will conjure up lively memories.

The first suggestions for such an association go back about two years earlier still, and are correspondingly closer to the end of World War II. In 1949 the Florentine Accademia nazionale Cherubini, founded in 1811, played host to a celebratory congress of music scholars, librarians and museum curators, with a ceremonial opening in the venerable Palazzo Vecchio on 27 October. This “Premier Congrès des Bibliothèques Musicales” was attended by some 60 participants from 12 countries.

A contemporary report gives some idea of the atmosphere of such a post-war congress: “Friendly support enabled participants to attend as guests even from the impoverished countries such as Germany and Austria […] Participation was limited exclusively to European countries and to two overseas countries [the USA and Australia!] […] Originally Italian and French were the only two official languages. It was all the more moving that contributions from German participants in their mother tongue were accepted without a murmur […] Moreover the fact that the conduct of the opening and closing sessions was entrusted to Professor Blume testifies to the genuine spirit of reconciliation promoted by the organising institution, which set the tone of the entire conference”.¹

The need for such a conference in these difficult conditions was dictated by the unusual situation in which the world of musical scholarship found itself at that time, four and a half years after the end of World War II. The ravages of war had substantially affected the documentary musical heritage of many European countries. Many libraries were completely destroyed, and many others had had their holdings decimated. Equally deplorable was the interruption of international contact brought about by the war, something which in the case of the great dictatorships had already been pursued before its outbreak.

Against this one had to weigh the more positive changes to the worlds of musicology and librarianship, in particular the energetic contribution of the USA. Despite significant pioneering work by John S. Dwight, Alexander W. Thayer, Oscar Sonneck and Otto Kinkeldey, the USA even in the Thirties was still thought of as a ‘developing’ country from the viewpoint of the European musical establishment. This perception had to be radically revised after the end of the war, when it became clear that the unforeseen flowering of music libraries and music scholarship in the USA posed a serious challenge to the pre-eminence of its European counterparts. This was in no small measure an unexpected fruit of the huge exodus after 1933 of European – especially German – intellectuals, a considerable number of whom had found in the USA new homes and new employment. This enormous upsurge in the USA gave rise to a corresponding growth in the size and importance of its music libraries and documentation centres, as well as to a music library profession of exemplary structure and organisation, that even by 1931 had created its own professional body, the Music Library Association, which was and still is the largest of its kind in the world.

All this must be borne in mind if one wishes to comprehend fully the impulse for change that inspired those at the Florence congress. They considered the most urgent task to be that of fostering international links between musicologists and, concomitantly, world-wide co-operation between music libraries. On this basis they hoped to draw a line under the existing state of affairs and to make a new beginning through their united efforts.

This first ‘world congress’ was only international in a very restricted sense. For historical reasons it consisted essentially of the European countries and the USA, and excluded on political grounds the so-called Eastern bloc countries. As we know, both these restrictions continue to have an impact on IAML down to the present day. A third deficiency, that women had virtually no part to play, was undoubtedly not recognised as such at that time, and has happily been made good long ago.

The themes discussed in Florence were very down to earth, and fell essentially into three areas:

1. The cataloguing of musical sources as a basis for establishing what remained after the great caesura of the war.
2. The setting up of a centre in each country that would hold photographic copies of that country’s sources, both as a precaution against further loss and to supply microfilms for research purposes.
3. A thorough revision of Robert Eitner’s Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellenlexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten aller Zeiten der christlichen Zeitrechnung bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, published in 1900-1904 (with supplements in 1913-16), which, owing to the enormous changes already mentioned, was no longer adequate to the demands that would be made on it.

The need for a new edition of Eitner’s great work had already been mooted a few months earlier by the Kiel musicologist Hans Albrecht at the first post-war congress of the International Musicological Society in Basel, and was raised independently in Florence by Vladimir Fédorov. Like the desire for international co-operation, it was an idea that was very much in the air at that time. But to capitalise on such an idea requires level-headed and energetic people who are in tune with the times and able to grasp the opportune moment.

Such were those who found themselves gathered together in Florence. Amongst the participants were both the 48-year-old librarian Vladimir Fédorov from Paris and the 56-year-old musicologist Friedrich Blume from Kiel, who were meeting each other for the first time. It was a meeting with happy consequences for research into musical sources and for the international music library community. Florence inspired them both not only with the evident necessity of international co-operation but also with the faith that such a state of affairs was no mere Utopia but could be made a practical reality. The momentous and fruitful idea that the music librarians of the world should unite in a joint task germinated in 1949 in Florence.

At Blume’s suggestion it was agreed that a further international music library congress should be held the following year in Lüneburg. It took place in July 1950, and gave rise to a concrete proposal for the creation of an international association of music libraries. It was unanimously resolved that a “Société Internationale des Bibliothécaires (!) Musicaux” (or as the slightly different English title had it, an “International Society of Music Libraries”) be founded. Valentin Denis from Belgium agreed to be the interim President, and Vladimir Fédorov the General Secretary. Fédorov also became secretary of an interim founding commission. USA participation in this commission was covered by a note that “The representative of the United States of North America remains to be selected”.²

This American representative was soon found in the person of Richard S. Hill, whose acquaintance Fédorov had made shortly after the Lüneburg congress and who responded enthusiastically to Fédorov’s proposal to found a library association: “the formation of an International Society seems to me of a paramount importance”. He declared his readiness to act also as a representative of the Music Library Association on the founding committee.³

A central concern of the Lüneburg congress was to follow up the project raised in Florence for a new universal bibliography of musical sources. Participants called on each country to co-operate by providing its own national input. It was decided to lay the overall plan before the International Musicological Society (IMS/SIM/IGMW) and to ask it to undertake the general organisation. It was assumed that the new association of music libraries, when it came into being, would be entrusted with the practical execution of the project. The establishment of a working party consisting of Friedrich Blume, Vladimir Fédorov, Hans Halm, Sven Lunn, Wolfgang Schmieder and Fausto Torrefranca marked the birth of this “Répertoire International des Sources Musicales”.

Exactly one year later, in July 1951, the official foundation of the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML/AIBM/IVMB) took place in the Maison de l’UNESCO at Paris. The latter body played an important and benevolent role during this early phase. As Alec Hyatt King described it in the opening speech of the Cambridge congress of 1959, “UNESCO acted as a munificent foster mother to our struggling infancy”.⁴ It placed its premises at IAML’s disposal for the early meetings, helped in formulating the constitution, and over a period of two years financed the work of the General Secretary and the initial preparations for RISM.⁵

Representatives of 38 countries were invited to the Paris congress, of whom 23 finally accepted. Fédorov gave an account of the work of the founding committee and presented a first draft of the Association’s constitution.

As before, the congress’s central concern was the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales, to which no less than five papers – by Friedrich Blume, Hans Zehntner, Richard S. Hill, Renée Girardon and Nino Pirotta – were devoted. For the first time the USA was strongly represented, by Richard Hill, Vincent Duckles, Glen Haydon, Kenneth Levy, Kurtz Myers, Leo Schrade, Charles Seeger and Emanuel Winternitz. Hill from Washington was elected as the first President of IAML, and Fédorov as General Secretary.⁶

The question as to which of the two main actors, Fédorov and Blume, was the real founding father, was much discussed. In a gentlemanly contest of modesty each declared the other to be the “onlie begetter”. Blume described matters thus in an address to Fédorov on his 65th birthday: “Such thorough and wide-ranging success…would have been unthinkable if you (admittedly…with the valuable help of discerning friends) had not succeeded in founding IAML in 1950”.⁷ Fédorov later wrote on the occasion of Blume’s death: “We first met at the ‘world’ congress of music librarians in Florence (1949). A musicologist, he was nevertheless interested in the world of music libraries and librarians, and supported energetically the suggestion of the UNESCO delegate (Luis Heitor Correa de Azevedo) that consideration be given to the formation of an association of music libraries. He himself organised our second congress, at Lüneburg (1950), and […] immediately took our destiny in his hands. With his help and guidance a ‘provisional commission’ was set up […] The initiative came from Friedrich Blume; he allowed others to give it concrete form. We can therefore truthfully designate him the ‘father’ of IAML”.⁸

In 1952 and 1953 three issues of a Bulletin d’information for members were published, edited by Vladimir Fédorov.⁹ The first, of only 8 narrow pages, set the pattern. Designed to meet the need to convey current information to a membership that had already grown to 230, “representing the principal music libraries, documentation centres and sound archives of 20 countries”, it gave details of the Executive Committee, the Board and the Commissions for Cataloguing, for Broadcasting Libraries and for Sound Archives, as well as of the National Branches formed in Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA, this last working in close co-operation with the MLA.

The second bulletin had grown to 32 pages and a larger format. It contained information about the proposed new series of facsimiles, Documenta Musicologica, and a list of members, together with a geographically arranged Liste sélective of recently published music and music literature.

The third and last bulletin branched out to include a scholarly article on the collections of the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève in Paris as well as various reports on the English national branch, the Sound Archives Commission, the Broadcasting Libraries Commission and the project for a “Code de Catalogage”, among other topics. Because of the variety and extent of its contents the bulletin already seemed almost a journal, a transformation it finally achieved in 1954. Thanks to the generous support of Karl Vötterle, the proprietor of Bärenreiter-Verlag in Kassel, it appeared under the title Fontes Artis Musicae twice yearly until 1963, thrice yearly until 1975 and thereafter quarterly. Naturally it was edited by Vladimir Fédorov. The idea and the title were both his, as was the periodical’s general appearance and format. With the third number of the volume for 1975 he handed over the editorship to Rita Benton. She characterised the secret of Fédorov’s tireless work on behalf of IAML and Fontes as “the unending devotion to a single ideal: international co-operation on a practical level. It is this perhaps contradictory combination of idealism and operational good sense that have made him so effective”.¹⁰

The establishment of Fontes, “which forms the corner stone of the whole edifice of the Association”,¹¹ marked the end of the beginning for IAML/AIBM/IVMB. The association had found both its form and its sense of direction.

The special character and multifarious nature of the association were commented on by King at the opening session of the Dijon congress in summer 1965: “I have belonged for some time past to a variety of learned and semi-learned societies, but I know of none which can compare over these last sixteen years with IAML in sheer diversity of interests”.¹² In the intervening years this praiseworthy diversity, paralleled by the growth in membership and of national branches, has increased dramatically, almost to the point of unmanageability. It is reflected firstly in the multiplicity of working groups and committees, and secondly in the co-operation that takes place with a seemingly endless array of other international bodies such as IFLA, IMC, ICA, IASA, ISO, EBLIDA, IAMIC, ICOM, CIMCIM, IMS. It is also reflected in its projects and publications, amongst which the great “R”s (RISM, RILM, RIdIM and RIPM), through the patronage of which our association has forged links with other scholarly organisations, must take pride of place.

Over the years the association has modified its form and structure to some extent, while its public face has altered significantly, if only because of changes in modern forms of communication and interaction. If one looks at the participants at its annual conferences and its triennial congresses it is clear that the association is growing younger (and more feminine). Both are good signs, and guarantee its future as a lively and developing entity.

The basis for its present existence as well as for its capacity for growth, change, rejuvenation and hence future development was laid down about half a century ago. The present backward look is intended to remind us of this.

In recalling the association’s establishment and growth I have deliberately avoided any abstract description of its organisation and structure, divorced from the personalities involved. I can only conceive of it in terms of the people who made it what it is. For however much a new undertaking may be conditioned by external necessity, however much it may depend on an opportune moment, however much it may owe to ideas that are “in the air”, nevertheless nothing in this world can ever be achieved without the intervention of individuals who can recognise, act upon and respond creatively to these circumstances.

Were it not for such people in our early years, the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres would never have existed. And without the many individuals who have carried forward and developed the work of these founding fathers, it would not now enjoy its lively and multifaceted status as the international focus of all activities in the field of music libraries, those most important centres for the collection, preservation, availability and dissemination of musical sources.

This is why, 50 years after the association’s foundation, I call to mind Friedrich Blume, Vladimir Fédorov, Hans Halm, Higinio Anglès, Richard S. Hill, Alec Hyatt King, Hans Zehntner, Sven Lunn, Kaj Schmidt-Phiseldeck, Frits Noske, Gösta Morin, Cari Johansson, John H. Davies, Charles Cudworth, Harriet Nicewonger, Virginia Cunningham, Alfons Ott, Vincent Duckles, Folke Lindberg, Geneviève Thibault (Comtesse de Chambure), Thor Wood, Karl Vötterle, Harold Spivacke, Rita Benton, Karl-Heinz Köhler, Hans Steinbeck, Heinz Werner, Wolfgang Schmieder, Yvette Fédoroff, Hermann Wassner, Barry S. Brook, Simone Wallon and François Lesure. Let this retrospect be dedicated to their memory.

*Director, Deutsches Musikgeschichtliches Archiv, Kassel (1954-71); Board, Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Frankfurt a.M. (1971-1991); General Secretary of IAML (1959-74); President (1974-7); Past-President (1977-80); Honorary Member (1977); Honorary President (1980); President, RISM (1988-); and President, Internationale Schubert-Gesellschaft ( i.e. editor of the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe) (1997-)

**formerly of the British Library, Indexer of IAML Council minutes (1978-); Associate editor of Fontes artis musicae (1981-8); Vice-President of IAML (1986-9 );Indexer of Fontes (1995-)