About

The Joseph Horovitz Collection and Archive is the result of several successive and substantial gifts to the Royal College of Music, the first made by the composer himself, the others generously donated by his widow, Anna Horovitz.

Originally designated ‘The Joseph Horovitz Collection’ and agreed by the composer with the College (on 21 June 2011) for future donation to facilitate performances of his works, it was to consist of the scores of his unpublished works, of works by him that had formerly been published but subsequently withdrawn from publishing companies, and of published works that had later been privately annotated by him. In the months following Horovitz’s death, a new agreement was reached between Anna Horovitz and the RCM Librarian, Peter Linnitt, and signed on 10 May 2022, for an expanded collection to be donated, which would now include all versions of the scores of his compositions, both published and unpublished, and his autograph manuscripts. Also, Joseph’s extensive extant musical and literary materials would be donated for the formation of an Archive, and these two richly interconnected parts would be united as ‘The Joseph Horovitz Collection and Archive’.

The wealth of materials, which began to arrive in batches at the RCM starting from 7 June 2022 and continuing at intervals until 2025, spans more than seventy-five years and covers Horovitz’s entire working life, making this one of the most significant composer archives held by the College. It is a remarkably complete record of Joseph Horovitz the composer, the musician, the teacher, colleague, and friend.

Besides the Collection items already mentioned (the scores and manuscripts), the contents of the Archive include audio and video resources, concert programmes and correspondence relating, inter alia, to his works, performances, publishers, contracts, international travel itineraries and his activities on behalf of the PRS. There are reviews, posters, memorabilia, teaching materials, scores of other composers’ music relevant to Horovitz’s own work, including favourite scores that were a constant influence on him, multiple ideas for Libretti with working correspondence about possible musical projects, together with books inscribed to him, books annotated by him, and many that contained inserted documents and correspondence. Highlights from the Collection and Archive, in addition to the autograph musical manuscripts, include letters from Nadia Boulanger and a sketchbook of drawings made during Joseph’s teenage years in Oxford. Gradually accessioning and cataloguing all these items is an ongoing project being undertaken by the RCM Library staff.

In an innovative approach to the general question of copyright, Anna Horovitz gifted to the College (on 7 July 2023) the rights to all of Joseph Horovitz’s works, published or unpublished, as well as the rights to the Collection and Archive. This means that the College will receive the royalties from Horovitz’s music for the next seven decades, which will benefit the RCM generally, as well as preserve and safeguard Horovitz’s works and reputation for the long term. The Archive, in addition to its intrinsic interest, provides the College with the documentation that aids the exploitation of the rights. Using the funds from the sale proceeds of Horovitz’s Steinway grand-the one, of his two pianos, at which he had composed most of his works-Anna has also re-endowed the annual composition prize in Horovitz’s name that was initiated and funded in 1978 by Sir Peter Morrison. The Joseph Horovitz Prize for Composition for Screen will, for a century, further the careers of young RCM composers and help to sustain and refresh the memory of Horovitz and his work in the profession.

The four gifts (the Collection, Archive, Rights and Prize) are seen as contributing in connected ways to the College’s overall mission of musical education, and are a creative and apt tribute to the institution at which Horovitz both studied and, for nearly sixty years, taught. He was also an avid user of the Library, and the Collection and Archive could have no better home. The College records its thanks to Anna Horovitz for her great generosity in entrusting Joseph’s physical and intellectual heritage to The Royal College of Music.