Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation Collection German, Italian collection Mrs. Gertrude Clarke Whittall (1867-1965) was one of the Library of Congress's great patrons of music and literature. Soon after moving to Washington in 1934, she presented to the Library five Stradivari instruments and established a foundation to support chamber music concerts at which these instruments would be played. In 1941, with the purchase of portions of the collection assembled by Jerome Stonborough of Vienna, Mrs. Whittall expanded the foundation's activities to include the acquisition of original eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century manuscripts by European composers. The collection contains important manuscript sketches and scores of Bach, Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Haydn, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Mozart, Reger, Clara Schumann, Schoenberg, Schubert, Wagner, and Weber, as well as correspondence between Brahms and conductor Hermann Levi (1864-1878) and letters of Beethoven, Mozart, and Weber. The Brahms material constitutes the largest group of Brahms manuscripts outside Vienna. Through the years funds provided by the foundation have enabled the Library to acquire, in addition to individual holographs, two manuscript collections related to Nicolò Paganini and Felix Mendelssohn respectively. These collections are described in separate entries. Music manuscripts and letters; papers and research materials relating to Nicolò Paganini and the Mendelssohn family. Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress Whittall Foundation Collection Rare music manuscripts and letters; papers and research materials relating to Nicolò Paganini and the Mendelssohn family. Researchers wishing to work with special collections are advised to inquire in advance about availability of material since many special collections are stored off-site. Composers--Autographs Chamber Music Bach, Johann Sebastian Beethoven, Ludwig van Berg, Alban Brahms, Johannes Haydn, Franz Joseph Mendelssohn, Felix Meyerbeer, Giacomo Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Reger, Max Schoenberg, Arnold Schubert, Franz Wagner, Richard Weber, Carl Maria von Paganini, Nicolò Stonborough, Jerome Levi, Hermann Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn Schumann, Clara Whittall, Gertrude Clarke Performing Arts Encyclopedia scdb Music Division, Library of Congress IHAS 090604 loc.natlib.scdb.200033837