Friends of the UNCG Libraries

Even as a beginning cellist many years ago, the question arose in Zoltan Szabo’s mind – why are there so many editions of the six Johann Sebastian Bach suites for solo cello?  As his skill and knowledge grew, the question remained an open one for him. There are no manuscripts of these important works in the composer’s own hand, but there four 18th century manuscript copies.  These four different manuscripts have spawned more than 100 published editions, not including reprints.  As time has passed, cellists have chosen different editions for many reasons, not always the best ones.  Some may have been chosen because they were inexpensive, some because they had a nice cover, or for other reasons, but there is no single definitive edition, nor is there likely to be one.  That is not even Szabo’s goal, for there is no original to consult, but he finds and studies all of the various editions of the master’s work, and tries to record the differences and changes tha...

(L-R) Mac Nelson, John Baga Paul Hessling (photo by Carolyn Shankle)    Paul Hessling has been a cataloger at UNCG for 25 years. John Baga is beginning his career as a cataloger at Mississippi State after getting his M.L.I.S. degree from UNCG in 2011. They are linked by a passion for UNCG’s cello music collection, and their relationship with Mac Nelson, UNCG’s cello music cataloger.  Here is their story.  UNCG’s cello music collection is believed to be the world’s largest.  It has been built over nearly half a century, beginning with the acquisition of the Luigi Silva Collection by the Friends of the Library in 1964. Seven other collections have been acquired and processed in the intervening years, and the web site at http://library.uncg.edu/info/depts/scua/collections/cello/   draws more than 6000 web page views per year from  students and scholars from throughout the world each year, as well as hundreds of visitors in...