A musical history of the Hilltop
The Pfautsch-Anderson Choral Browing Collection is a non-circulating browsing collection of choral scores that supports the needs of choral and sacred singers, choral conductors, and music arrangers. The collection is comprised of nearly 6,300 music scores donated by two esteemed SMU music professors—professor of voice and choral conducting Lloyd Pfautsch, and professor of organ, Robert T. Anderson. The collection after a decade of cataloging, is now fully processed and discoverable in the SMU Libraries Library Search catalog.
The collection in Hamon started with an initial donation from Professor Pfautsch, who taught at SMU from 1958-1992. Pfautsch composed and arranged many choral works in addition to building a personal library of octavos that he classified and organized. (The octavo is a music score format with vocal parts and usually keyboard accompaniment in the form of a small booklet.) His initial collection was absorbed into Hamon and cataloged using the Library of Congress classification system for better discoverability.
In 2013, an additional 2,300 octavos from the collection of Robert T. Anderson, professor of organ who taught at SMU from 1960-1996 were donated to Hamon, and the decision was made to combine the two donations into a browsing collection. The collection is non-circulating, containing single copies of works (as opposed to a set of parts distributed for performance), allowing access to users for personal study. Processing the octavos has been the work of multiple catalogers with music expertise for over a decade, beginning with Michelle Hahn and completed by Synae Yoon and Janet Allmon.
The octavo collection complements the generous previous donations of music scores and books by Lloyd Pfautsch and Rober T. Anderson, bringing the total number to over 8,200 items in the Hamon Arts Library. The collection is available in the library’s third floor music stacks as collection of white binders in the corner near our electronic piano. (Yes, Hamon has a full electronic piano with a headphone jack for patrons to use with our music scores.)
Behind the collection
Lloyd A. Pfautsch (1921-2003) was a composer, conductor, and professor of voice and choral conducting at Southern Methodist University from 1958-1992. Pfautsch served as associate professor of sacred music and was the founding director of the Master of Sacred Music program, director of choral activities, and associate Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts.
In addition to being a notable music educator, Professor Pfautsch was a celebrated conductor and choral festival leader. A prolific composer and arranger of choral and instrumental pieces, his publications include more than three hundred musical works, three books, periodical articles, and an instructional video. Professor Pfautsch donated his personally organized and cataloged 2,500 octavo scores to the Hamon Arts Library.
Robert T. Anderson (1934-2009) was an internationally renowned organist who taught at Southern Methodist University from 1960-1996. He was the service organist for Perkins Chapel from 1960-1995, Chair of the Organ Department, first Meadows Distinguished Teaching Professor, University Distinguished Professor, and served as organ consultant for the C.B. Fisk organs opp. 100 and 101 at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and Caruth Auditorium.
Widely known as “RTA”, Anderson’s reputation as a pedagogue was legendary, with demanding expectations that challenged and inspired the best from his students. His music legacy continues in the brilliant students who are successful concert artists and instructors including Dr. George Baker, Mary Preston, Wolfgang Rubsam, Carole Terry, Bruce Bengtson, Ross Wood, John Chapell Stowe, Stefan Engels, and scores of others. In addition to the thousands of choral octavos in this collection, Hamon contains hundreds of books, recordings, and organ scores donated by RTA.
This post was written by Pam Pagels, arts & humanities research librarian at Hamon Arts Library.