Tweet Nek Mirskey collection of film and salon music at Pitt

I just spent two wonderful days at the University of Pittsburgh Theodore M. Finney Music Library, where the 11,000 piece music collection of one Nek Mirskey is housed.

Mirskey himself is something of a mystery, if you have any information about him the library would love to find out more. He appearently had a brother named Gene who also worked with him or his Polonia Orchestra in Cleveland, Ohio.

Here is the information the library has:

This collection contains printed music, manuscripts, publications catalogs and promotional flyers, and other ephemera documenting Nek Mirskeys dance band, Polonia, in the first half of the twentieth century . The bulk of the collection comprises printed dance band music used for performance of the Polonia Orchestra. The titles for the scores are in a variety of languages, though primarily English. The other printed music consists of solo piano, or solo string instrument, primarily violin; scale and technical exercise method books are also included. Publications catalogs and promotional flyers are interfiled with the sheet music. Handwritten manuscript scores and parts, some parts being mounted on the back of other printed music, letterhead, or plain cardboard. Within the manuscript collection is a folder labeled "Gail Savery" which contains publications catalogs, sacred music pamphlets, chant notation, a recital program, and a class schedule. Some of the manuscripts are contained in two conductors stand folders and one drum and timpani stand folder.

I was able to add a little new information to wit:

Mirskey served as a ship's musician aboard the S. S. Lapland, and entered the US in that capacity twice in 1914, at the time he was a resident of the UK, and had an address with a Polish landlord in Liverpool, his date of birth was circa 1887, as he was listed as 27 years old, Russian of Polish origin and single.

He seems to have been in Cleveland and active in dance, theatre and silent film orchestras - as leader - from 1914 - until about 1930.

The collection is largely salon, band, and theatre music (including around 2,000 pieces of photoplay and incidental music), and the librarians are very desirous of having the collection put to use. The librarians, James Cassaro and Carlos Pena were very friendly and helpful. The staff is very small so photocopying services are very restrictive, if you have more than one or two pieces you want, they simply do not have the staff or budget to provide them for you. But the collection is open during the library's hours and you may photocopy as much music as you need if you go there in person, contacting them in advance is recommended. Photocopying is 15 cents per page.

Music Library
University of Pittsburgh
B28 Music Building
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
(412) 624-4130 voice
(412) 624-4180 fax
uls-musiclibrary@mail.pitt.edu" target="_blank

The scores are in amazingly good condition, and every piece I requested to look at, which included around 200 pieces of photoplay music were absolutely complete, every part is present for either a small or large theatre orchestra ensemble, and with few exceptions neat clean and unmarked, some had light pencil notations, and few scores showed signs of having been played often.

Also the number of additional pieces is staggering, to date the entire 11,000 piece collection is only partially catalog so new pieces are always emerging.

In discussions with the librarians they commented that they would like to promote the archives use more and they would love to digitize the collection for the use of scholars and musicians, but they need to justify the investment by showing those who handle the purse that they have an audience of musicians and scholars who want to use the collection.

Here is the link to Pittcat (Pitt's library catalog): http://pittcat.pitt.edu/

To search the entire collection, type "Mirskey collection" and search under title.

and here is more about Nek Mirksey and the collection from the Pitt catalog:

Mirskey Collection, Theodore M. Finney Music Library, University of Pittsburgh.
No information has been found on Nek Mirskey and his Polonia orchestra, or his donation of the music to the Alliance College.

Appraised, sorted, and cataloged by various librarians and library interns between 1991 to the present.
Polish National Alliance; Gift; 1991.
Some information on performing rights is available upon request.
Other collections donated from the Alliance College have been dispersed throughout the University of Pittsburgh Library System. The Polish Singers Alliance of America collection is housed in the Theodore M. Finney Music Library.

Eric,
Great information to post here. I have used music from the Mirskey collection several times with Peacherine, and their photocopies are always superb. I actually almost went there on Monday to do some photocopying.

I didn't realize they had 11,000 pieces of music. I'll have to check with them to see what chances I have of going through a lot of their uncatalogued music.

Dear Andrew,

I realize I put 11,000 because that's what the Pitt catalog said, but as I was re-browsing the collection today, I noticed that depending on how you search, it only lists about 1800 pieces. My first search yielded 10,000 titles, but my second search came up with the number just below 1800.

This puzzled me and I recalled from visiting and personally seeing that the rest of the scores are in the library, that I thought, hmmm, doesn't quite look like another 9,000 numbers, so maybe they mean individual items, not pieces of music.

On my first visit I thought that they had more in storage; which I believe they felt they were all in the library; so in any case if they are counting parts, then a full band/orchestra set should have 9 to 13 parts at least, and many scores that I looked at had multiple string parts, so I'm not sure where the 11,000 number comes/came from.

However, I do know, they do not let anyone but staff handle the music until it has been pulled from the cataloged shelves and given to the researcher, you may handle multipal scores at your desk, and copy table, but you can't leaf through them until they hand them over. So I'm afraid they will not let you go digging in the stacks of un-cataloged music. I would want to do the same thing of course, but that's not how you should treat an archive, however, if there's something you want that they know exists and it hasn't been cataloged, they will often try to find it for you (there were two number like that they were able to find for me on my first visit). As you might expect, even in superb condition, many of the scores are very fragile from age.

They have a lot of questions about Mirskey, so I hope someone turns some additional information up.

Good luck, there are some great pieces in the collection, some common stuff, (based on the other online collections I've browsed) and some very rare things. Many of the pieces most suited for film music are not all are cataloged under silent film music, but are in the general orchestra selections.