This project is to give the world premier of the only known string quintet version of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony dating from his lifetime. Arrangements of large-scale works like symphonies were highly popular in Beethoven’s day and an important means of disseminating music to a wide audience before the days of regular public concerts and before the era of the gramophone.

This workshop and a full performance to follow in February 2021 will not just educate the audience on the subject of these musical arrangements, their performance, and their historical importance—including their importance in NZ history, but are intended to highlight and bring alive the important but little known music collections in New Zealand Libraries.

IAML NZ, representing music librarians in many spheres in New Zealand, is presenting this workshop to highlight the important role played by music libraries and librarians in enabling performance and research.

We also wish to commemorate this Beethoven 250th year, and give an opportunity for New Zealand libraries and musicologists to have a small moment on the world stage.

The manuscript was bought by the University of Auckland Music and Dance Library in 2018 with a bequest from the estate of Prof Nicholas Tarling. A performing edition of the work is being prepared by Assoc Prof Nancy November, to be published in 2021.

Presented by the New Zealand Branch of the International Association of Music Libraries in association with:

The Nicholas Tarling Charitable Trust

Assoc. Prof Nancy November, University of Auckland

Dr Graham McPhail and NZ Barok

Auckland Libraries

Special Collections, Libraries and Learning Services | Te Tumu Herenga, University of Auckland.