MUSIC AND THEATRE
Music in manuscript and print has played a central part in the collections of the Royal Library as far back as the foundation in the 1650’s. From 1878 music was organized as a unit and since then the collection has been the main national collection of Danish as well as of foreign music. The drama texts were added in 1989 when the Drama Collection, which contains almost complete collections of Copenhagen theatre repertoires, was incorporated into the department. The main purpose of the Music and Theatre Department is to collect, store, and make available, wherever possible, a complete collection of music written by Danish composers, supplied by a comprehensive variety of old and new foreign music within the fields of practical musical life as well as research. Apart from that the Department handles the continuous collection of play scripts from nearly 50 Danish theatres whose repertoires thus are preserved for posterity. A selection of the collections is available online as The Drama Collection was established in 1939 by the Drama Collection’s Society (Selskabet Dramatisk Bibliotek) as a private special library within the University Library. Its main task was to supplement the public libraries within dramatic literature. In 1989 according to an agreement with the Ministry of Culture the collection was transferred to the Royal Library where it is now held as a separate collection of the Music and Theatre Department. The collections of printed reference books and the handwritten catalogues of the Drama Collection have from that time been an integrated part of the Royal Library’s Centre for Music and Theatre. The Drama Collection contains nearly complete collections of the repertoire performed at the main private theatres of Copenhagen, amongst others Casino Teatret (The Casino Theatre) (1848-1937), Folketeatret (The People’s Theatre) (1857-), Dagmarteatret (The Dagmar Theatre) (1883-1937), Nørrebros Teater (The Theatre of Nørrebro) (1887-), Det ny Teater (The New Theatre) (1906-), and Betty Nansens Teater (Betty Nansen’s Theatre) (1917-) as well as the more recent repertoire of the Royal Theatre.
Since the mid-1960’s plays have systematically been collected from all large Danish theatres, including plays performed by radio and television. Almost 50 Danish theatres now entrust their repertoire to the Drama Collection. The Collection comprises about 25,000 manuscripts and about 16,000 printed texts and books. |