Tibor Serly papers, 1905-1992

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Collection context

Creator:
Serly, Tibor
Abstract:
This collection contains the personal papers, including musical scores, of the Hungarian-American composer, arranger, and theorist Tibor Serly.
Extent:
3.15 linear feet 7 archival document boxes; 1 card file box; 1 oversize flat box #749
Language:
English , Hungarian .
Scope and content:

The collection is comprised of the papers in the possession of Serly upon his death in 1978, as well as correspondence related to his career handled by his wife, Miriam Serly, after his death. The content of the papers includes scores, manuscript drafts, correspondence, and other materials related to Serly's career as a composer and writer on music; typescripts, reviews, articles, correspondence, pamphlets, translations, notes, and a 16mm film by and about Béla Bartók; and legal documents, photographs, audio cassette recordings, printed materials, press clippings, certificates, awards, and other memorabilia pertaining to Serly's personal life.

Biographical / historical:

Tibor Serly was born in Losonc, Hungary on November 25, 1901. He began his musical studies with his father, Lajos Serly, a Hungarian patriot, theatrical composer, and pupil of Liszt. Due to financial hardships, Lajos Serly moved his family in 1905 to New York City, where Tibor spent his childhood. Tibor gained early experience in pit orchestras led by his father until 1922, when he returned to Budapest to attend the Liszt Academy. There, he studied violin with Jenö Hubay, composition with Zoltán Kodály, and orchestration with Leó Weiner, graduating in 1925 with highest honors. During his years in Budapest, Serly also first made the acquaintance of his longtime mentor and friend, Béla Bartók.

Serly returned to the United States upon graduation and held positions as a violinist and violist in leading American orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Eugene Ormandy and the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini. He also became close friends with several modernist poets, including William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, Basil Bunting, and most notably Ezra Pound, whom Serly visited frequently at Pound's home in Rapallo, Italy, arranging concerts there. In 1938, Serly retired from performing to focus on composing and teaching.

In 1940, Béla Bartók and his wife emigrated from wartime Hungary to New York. Until Bartók's death in 1944, Serly devoted his energies to providing material and emotional support to the ailing exiled composer. Serly's papers include intimate photographs of Bartók and himself, as well as a home movie of an informal piano performance by Bartók. Serly arranged the "Mikrokosmos" suite for chamber orchestra, orchestrated the "Third Concerto for Piano", and posthumously completed the master's "Concerto for Viola" from sketches of the work. A talented decipherer and stylist, Serly also reconstructed a duet by Liszt and a section of Schubert's unfinished "Eighth Symphony".

From the 1930s on, Serly engaged in serious theoretical studies, developing a post-Schoenbergian enharmonic system called "Modus Lascivus" which divides the twelve-tone scale into two segments to create a multimodal chromatic scale system. Serly published two advanced theoretical texts"A Second Look at Harmony" (1964) and "Modus Lascivus: The Road to Enharmonicism" (1976), and had just completed a third"The Rhetoric of Melody", at the time of his death. Serly was also working on both a personal memoir and a biography of Bartók, the unfinished typescripts of which are included in these papers.

Towards the end of his life, Serly relocated with his second wife, the pianist Miriam Molin, to Longview, Washington, where he continued to teach and actively championed modernist music in the Pacific Northwest. At the end of his career, Serly was better known for his famous friends and collaborators, especially Bartók and Pound, than his own musical and theoretical work, a fact about which he complained bitterly in later correspondence. He was, however, indefatigable in his commitment to both innovation in modern music and preserving the rich musical traditions in which he had played a central role.

Tibor Serly died on October 8, 1978 after being struck by a car on a visit to London. His devoted wife Miriam, who kept his work alive through her performances, compiled the papers in this collection.

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is located on-site.

This collection has no restrictions.

Unique time-based media items have been reformatted and are available onsite via links in the container list. Commercial materials are not routinely digitized.

Terms of access:

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML). The RBML grants permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.

Preferred citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Tibor Serly papers, Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

Location of this collection:
6th Floor East Butler Library
535 West 114th Street
New York, NY 10027, USA
Before you visit:
Researchers interested in viewing materials in the RBML reading room must must book an appointment at least 7 days in advance. To make the most of your visit, be sure to request your desired materials before booking your appointment, as researchers are limited to 5 items per day.
Contact:
rbml@library.columbia.edu