The Curzon Collection

Through the generosity of Dr Peter Curzon and Mr Fritz Curzon the British Library has recently acquired an extensive collection of annotated scores, notebooks, and other papers of the late Sir Clifford Curzon. The working scores amount to some 300 items. Nearly all are printed editions, but there are a few manuscripts as well, including autographs of William Alwyn and Sir Lennox Berkeley. Seventy-eight composers are represented, the standard ones naturally very liberally, many others by only one or two pieces. There are works with orchestra in either full score or two-piano reduction (and sometimes in both), great quantities of solo pieces, and a substantial amount of chamber music. Although this is not Curzon's complete library it includes everything that could be found with his markings and thus nearly everything that he played in public or worked on.