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Assorted items => General musical discussion => Topic started by: Musoharv on February 06, 2018, 10:34:26 am



Title: Arnold Cooke research - help required please!
Post by: Musoharv on February 06, 2018, 10:34:26 am
Hello all!
I am fairly new to this forum and impressed by the large amount of interesting information posted by many knowledgeable people, so I am wondering if anyone here can help me? I am a pianist with particular interests in British 20th century music and currently involved in a large-scale project researching the composer Arnold Cooke, in particular, his chamber music, a large amount of which I am also recording.

I would love to know if there are any members on this bulletin board who knew Arnold or worked with him in any capacity and if so, would they be willing to share memories of him as a man and musician.

I have been searching for correspondence written by Cooke as there is currently no central repository for correspondence, and have had some success in tracking down quite a number of letters to a variety of recipients so far. However, there must yet be many letters in private hands that I have never seen. If anyone here has any letters from Cooke, or knows of the whereabouts of any, I would be really grateful to know of them.
Any information very gratefully received!
Many thanks in advance.


Title: Re: Arnold Cooke research - help required please!
Post by: relm1 on February 06, 2018, 03:18:30 pm
Where are you located?  Are you able to go to Manchester?  I understand there is a lot of manuscripts and possibly other writings at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Maybe you can reach out to them - their research assistant email address is listed on their page and there archives of Cooke's manuscripts includes correspondences.  Stuff like this for example:

Level    Series
Ref No    AC-Add1/2
Title    Correspondence from Cooke to Peter Marr
Date    1966-1990
Description    This series contains 9 letters, some with accomanying lists of Cooke's work. They are addressed from Cooke to Peter Marr, the content of which mainly refers to Cooke's work as a composer.


Title: Re: Arnold Cooke research - help required please!
Post by: Musoharv on March 06, 2018, 09:02:51 am
Thanks for the helpful reply. I am aware of all the material at the RNCM and, in fact, it was me who sourced Dr. Marr's letters for the archive. The original enquiry was really to find out if anyone 'out there' knows of letters, scores etc. in private hands that I may not know of.