Recently we have been cataloguing and conducting conservation work to the sizable music collection donated to the archives by Sidney Campbell, influential composer of sacred music and organist of St George’s Chapel 1961-1974. This has involved transferring Campbell’s collection to acid-free folders and boxes, removing objects which are likely to cause damage to the collection, and listing the documents on our electronic database, thereby preserving the collection and making it readily accessible to researchers.
The collection consists of over 1300 pieces of printed sacred music, around 100 music manuscripts handwritten by Campbell, and various other exciting documents – the programme for Sidney Campbell’s investiture service at Buckingham Palace, a large collection of traditional English folk music, and lists of the music played in St George’s Chapel in the 1960s and early 1970s, for example.
Many of the pieces of sacred music in Campbell’s collection are still played in chapel services.
In addition to the Sidney Campbell Collection of modern printed and manuscript music, St George’s Chapel archive holds a large collection of printed and manuscript music dating from the fourteenth century onwards. This collection includes Men’s Part books, Organ books, Treble Books, and manuscripts, composed or deposited by previous members of the College. The current Image of the Month on this website is of a fragment of a service book dating from around the fourteenth century, providing a sense of the richness and diversity of our collection.
John (Archives Assistant)