Musician and Composer Societies: A World Directory

Abstract

Recent attention by the press and the subsequent demand for current data on musician and composer societies has encouraged me to update this Directory, which first appeared in this journal in June 1974. The response received by that article was most gratifying and helped to make contacts with many groups which appear for the first time in this edition. The earlier emphasis on recording artists has given way more to the neglected composers. The demise of the English Furtwangler Society and the Jascha Horenstein Society, as well as the semi-retirement of the Bruckner and Nielsen Societies in this country is probably due to the success of their efforts and others to bring about the reissuing of a wealth of new recordings of these formerly neglected artists. Somewhere, however, there seem to be groups working for almost every composer who has been passed over by fate, fashion, or regional obscurity. Composers such as Bantock, Bax, Balfe, Schmidt, Schoeck, Sowerby, and Scott seem little more than footnotes in musical history, but who is to say that they, like Mahler, Bruckner and to some extent Delius, may not yet have their day. The mind is boggled by the ubiquitous Rozsa, Wagner, and Strauss Family Societies. The work of the society and gesellschaft in gathering and publishing the definitive editions of their subject's compositions paves the way for eventual public recognition. All societies share the common goal of promoting their namesake's memory and musical works, but each tends to emphasize certain approaches, all of which help expand our musical horizons. Publication, research, and recordings aside, societies are usually concerned with performance or performance style of their respective composer or musician. Some societies maintain archives, museums, and shrines, and others are social gatherings where members share their experiences, memories, and past associations with their subject. Many of the groups listed below are concerned with almost all of these activities.