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Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
2004-2005-M51: Source of acquisition--Barbara Munz. Method of acquisition--Deed of Gift; Date of acquisition--June 2004.
This collection is arranged into two series and six subseries.
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.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Tibor Serly papers, Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
This collection was surveyed by Bridget Lerette.
This collection was processed by Jude Webre 2007.
Finding aid written by Jude Webre in May 2007.
The New York Public Library has a related collection of Tibor Serly Papers with an extensive biography and finding aid. See also, Ms Coll Bartók in Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia for related materials
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.
Permission is required to copy or photograph musical scores. Single photocopies may be made for research purposes of non-score material. For more information, email rbml@columbia.edu. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Series I includes unpublished drafts of books written by Serly, and musical scores and sketches in his personal collection. The series is arranged into two subseries: Writings by Serly and Musical Scores.
Serly spent the better part of his last decade researching and writing a biography of Béla Bartók, a theory text about melody, and a personal memoir, all of which are included here in draft form. The extensive materials for the Bartók biography include: Serly's translations from Hungarian of musical essays written by Bartók; interviews with friends and family of Bartók; and unpublished historical and musicological essays written by Serly about Bartók. The Bartók material also contains the only known copy of a 16mm color home movie, without sound, of an informal performance by Bartók from 1944; with documents and correspondence from the 1970s between Serly and the Bartók estate concerning ownership of the film. Subseries 1 also includes the final draft versions of the unpublished
Bartok 16mm home movie
A collection of original scores and arrangements from the entire length of Serly's career. The works include ballets, songs, chamber music, symphonies, and experimental music, all in different states of completion: parts, conductor scores, revisions, sketches, microfilms, and transparencies. Several pieces also demonstrate Serly's expertise as an arranger, with works by Bartók, Bach, Schubert, and his father, Lajos Serly.
Permission is required to copy or photograph musical scores. Single photocopies may be made for research purposes of non-score material.
Series II contains business documents, correspondence, a scrapbook, and personal effects of Serly's life and career. The series is arranged into four subseries: Correspondence, Business and Publicity Materials, Memorabilia, and Photographs.
Personal and business-related correspondence, mostly from the 1970s, arranged alphabetically. Among the correspondents are Geza Frid, Lawrence Gilman, James Laughlin, and Peter Bartók. Subseries also includes the correspondence of Miriam Serly concerning Serly's career with scholars, publishers, and the Bartók estate through the 1980s; and three folders of reproductions of Serly's brief correspondence with Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and more extensive correspondence with the music critic Henry Pleasant. These copies were obtained by Serly from other archives.
Serly thoroughly documented his performing and composing career, best represented in an oversized scrapbook spanning his career, from music school concerts in Budapest from 1925; through his active period in the 1930s and 1940s, playing under Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy, and Arturo Toscanini; to his later years in the Pacific Northwest. Scrapbook includes an almost complete record in programs of performances of Serly's work, as well as clippings, reviews, and personal letters. Also, provides a record of Bartók's reception in New York during his exile and tributes to him after his death. Other notables in the scrapbook include Kodály, Ezra Pound, and Geza Frid. Subseries 2 also contains a file of newspaper clippings kept by Serly; a collection of clippings about Ezra Pound, mostly from the 1970s; a folder of orchestra programs from Serly's career; and original copyright forms and contracts for his published work.
A small collection of personal items including: certificates, awards, and medals presented to Serly; membership cards; the 1911 naturalization certificate of Lajos Serly and his family; postcards and items collected by Serly in Hungary; and official documents pertaining to Serly's accidental death in London, including his death certificate.
Two folders of photographs and negatives: the first contains photographs related to Bartók and his family, including several excellent images of casual moments from Bartók's time in America, as well as the last photograph (and negative) of Bartók, standing in front of Columbia University with his family. The second folder includes professional, publicity, and personal photographs, arranged chronologically, of Serly throughout his career, from 1930s orchestra photos through a 1976 trip to Hungary that Serly took with his wife to visit Kodály, and personal photographs of Serly at the end of his life in Longview, Washington.