Interview with Dr. Felix Meyer, Director of the Paul Sacher Foundation, Basel
Dr. Meyer, the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basle publicly announced a few weeks ago that it had obtained the musical documents from the autograph manuscript collection of the Basle economist Arthur Wilhelm as a deposit. Amongst numerous precious items, there is also a manuscript which is thrilling news for Hindemith scholars: the autograph manuscript of the Klaviermusik mit Orchester (Klavier: linke Hand) Op. 29 composed in 1923. What can you tell us about the collector Arthur Wilhelm?
Arthur Wilhelm (1899-1962) was a professionally trained national economist who came to the Basle pharmaceutical and chemical firm of Ciba in 1922. He worked his way up there step by step, from Italian correspondent of the colours department to a member of the directorate committee and finally Vice President of the Board of Directors. He died completely unexpectedly in February 1962.
What is known about his activities as a collector?
Arthur Wilhelm must have had a wide variety of interests, a humanistic education and a fine appreciation of the arts. At present, we know only a little concerning the origins of his collection. The descendants and present owners, however, are busy with the processing of the collection's history. At any rate, there is a nice story making the rounds that an autograph convolute of songs with piano accompaniment by a famous composer was once offered to him for sale. Before the purchase was confirmed, his wife is said to have performed the songs at a house concert whilst he followed them in the score with his children. Only afterwards did he decide to buy the pieces. One can also assume that Wilhelm began his collecting activities during the 1930s and that he certainly must have continued them until the end of his life.
The Wilhelm Collection is not the first private collection that is now being preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation…
Alongside the private collection of Paul Sacher which has entered the collected documents of his foundation, there are several other important autograph manuscript collections in Basle. During the 1990s the Rudolf Grumbacher Collection was the first private collection that we accepted on permanent loan. We wanted to try and see how practical it would be for the Paul Sacher Foundation to assume a mediating function between the public interest in documents of cultural historical importance and the private sphere of the collectors. Today, we can say that it has proven its value: it is fortunate that the documents of the Rudolf Grumbacher Collection could be made accessible to the interested public in this way.
How did the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basle come into contact with the present-day owners of the Wilhelm Collection?
Music manuscripts from the Sacher, Wilhelm and Floersheim Collections were shown at an exhibition that took place at the Basle Museum of Art in 1975. This made it possible to gain certain insights into these collectors' possessions. We were able to find out, for example, that there was an important source for the String Trio of Anton Webern in the Arthur Wilhelm Collection. On the other hand, most of the surviving Webern sources are preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation. After the project of an Anton Webern Complete Edition was launched several years ago at the Musicological Seminar of the University of Basle in cooperation with our institution, we contacted the owners of the collection in order to be able to take this manuscript - which had not yet been described by scholars - into consideration. The agreement for the present permanent loan ultimately resulted from this contact.
Which manuscripts does the collection contain besides those of Webern and Hindemith?
There is the Piano Trio in E-flat major by Franz Schubert, for example, the Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 by Johannes Brahms, the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61 by Frédéric Chopin as well as manuscripts of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Gioachino Rossini, Franz Liszt and Hugo Wolf. Several important sources for twentieth-century music are also to be found in the collection. Of Arnold Schönberg's sources, for example, there is the complete material for the Suite in the Old Style but also, in particular, a sketch for the Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16 that had been considered missing since the early 1920s. Of Stravinsky there are sketches for the ballet Pétrouchka (1910) as well as the principal sources for Perséphone (1934).
Susanne Schaal-Gotthardt