By JANE GOTTLIEB

Above: Ardon Bar Hama painstakingly photographed and digitized thousands of pages for the Juilliard Manuscript Collection Web site. (Photo by Jennifer Fuschetti) Below: A page from the site showing a portion of the manuscript of Bach’s Cantata, BWV 176.

When Juilliard announced Bruce Kovner’s extraordinary donation of 138 original manuscripts, sketches, annotated first editions, and other treasures last February, some expressed concern that these important sources would not be available for study until our new custom-designed reading room opens in fall 2009. Well, thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the work of the gifted Israeli photographer Ardon Bar Hama, we now debut a magnificent Web site with digital images of most of the manuscripts in the collection.

While Bar Hama has done exemplary work on digitizing rare religious collections (see, for example, his Aleppo Codex Web site at www.aleppocodex.org) for such institutions as the Vatican, the Israel Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the New York Public Library, this was his first experience working with music manuscripts. As he put it, “Digitizing music manuscripts was in many ways more challenging than digitizing the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls. As I am not a musician, musical notes are as foreign to me as cuneiform. I had to take special care not to allow distortion of notes on the staff lines.”

Bar Hama travels with his Leaf Aptus 75 camera and accompanying computer equipment all packed neatly into so-called “Rolling Studio” suitcases. This past summer library administrative assistant Noah Opitz and I spent many days with him at the climate-controlled storage facility that houses our collection until 2009, when it will move to its permanent home here at Juilliard. On most days we were joined by conservator Myriam de Arteni. Each manuscript page—about 8,000 in all—was photographed individually using his overhead camera. While a time-consuming process, users of the digital copies will appreciate the time spent to create such superb quality images, some of which rival the originals in clarity. As Noah describes it, “There was an acute attention to detail throughout the process. At one point we paused because Ardon noticed a speck of dust—the size of a pixel—appearing on the photographs.”

Photography work was somewhat challenging for several key manuscripts. For example, the late engraver’s proof copy of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is quite fragile. The score is bound in three volumes, with separate sets of trombone parts, choral parts, and vocal parts. In the finale, there is a separate folder of 13 large folio leaves for Pages 43-68 (probably because the copyists needed larger paper). These leaves were photographed separately; the digital images were then put in order as part of final processing.

There were times when it was overwhelming to be in the presence of these treasures. As Noah puts it, “There was always a sense of something sacred being in the room. Each item was handled like a newborn baby. You can’t help but treat them like that, knowing who’s handled the items before you.”

Our Web site, www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org, is Flash-based; users will need to download Adobe Flash software if it is not already on their computers. (Instructions for doing so are found on the site.) We chose to use Flash technology because it allows the user to view the artist’s work with unparalleled clarity, while at the same time addressing concerns of copyright abuse, as the images cannot be downloaded.

Another special feature is the site’s use of “Zoomify” technology (click on “zoom” when viewing an image), so users may examine every tiny detail of these incredible sources. Looking at the close-up image of Beethoven’s pen on the manuscript of his four-hand piano arrangement of the Grosse Fuge, for example, one can discern the notes even on his messiest pages. (His contemporary editors would have welcomed such technology when preparing editions from his manuscripts!) Or, page through Richard Strauss’s annotated copy of the libretto of his opera Daphne to see his musical sketches within the margins. The site offers countless examples of this type of close study.

The musicologist Richard Kamer has written: “An autograph is like a snapshot, catching its subject in a private moment, in the midst of an act, spontaneous or posed…” Thanks to Mr. Kovner’s extraordinary generosity and his brilliant collecting acumen, the Juilliard community has many opportunities to share these special moments with long-gone masters.

So, open your Web browser to www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org, turn on your speakers (the intro includes a sound clip of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth from a live 1990 performance with the Juilliard Orchestra under Otto Werner-Mueller), and enjoy the many priceless treasures of the Juilliard Manuscript Collection.

Jane Gottlieb is Juilliard’s vice president for library and information resources. Digitization of the Juilliard Manuscript Collection was accomplished, in part, with a generous leadership gift from the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency.