Rare books and music curator at the National Library of Australia, Susannah Helman in the new exhibition which showcases the world of early music makers and writers. Photo: Sally Hopman.
An exhibition featuring rare music books and manuscripts has just opened at the National Library of Australia (NLA) in Canberra.
The Excellencies of Musick exhibition showcases music material printed or handwritten in Britain from 1636 to 1850 – a world of concerts, music makers and thinkers, printers and publishers.
It features rare works by famous composers, theorists and philosophers, as well as portraits, engraved tickets and trade cards. Plus a piece entitled Musical Catechism, with Tunes, for the Use of the Blind.
Rare books and music curator at the NLA, Dr Susannah Helman, said Musical Catechism was written by Glaswegian businessman and philanthropist John Alston who had a long association with the blind. It is believed his method of raised printing, read by touch and sight, was a predecessor to Braille.
The rare 1669 book on display features cheeky annotations in mirror writing by schoolboys. Photo: Sally Hopman.
More than 30 rare items are featured in the exhibition, all from the collection of longstanding NLA patrons and musicologists, Dr Jamie Kassler and Dr Michael Kassler.
Dr Helman said all the items in the exhibition had a story to tell.
“Some of the items are very rare,” she said. “They include tickets and trade cards that tell of small moments in the lives of people living centuries ago. Other items in the exhibition are quite beautiful examples of printing techniques – engraving, lithography and mezzotint.”
She said one of the exhibition’s highlights was a broadside advertising an 1817 performance of Handel’s masterpiece, The Messiah at Drury Lane in London. It promoted the performance of eight-year-old violinist, Miss Tremean.
Dr Helman said the broadside was unusually printed by a woman, Elizabeth Macleish, who ran her husband’s business for many years after his death.
The exhibition also shows how, despite the years, some things never change – especially when it involves naughty children.
This broadside for a performance of Handel’s Messiah at Covent Garden, was published in 1817. Photo: Sally Hopman.
In one of the rare books on display, a 1669 English translation of Neapolitan Della Porta’s practical guide to nature’s mysteries, you can see schoolboy humour with mirror writing stating, “Are not you a fo[o]lish ass that cannot reed [sic] without a glass”.
Dr Helman said the Kassler collection had been assembled over 50 years and included books about music, intonation and acoustics, theories of harmony and composition, histories of music, biographies of musicians, dictionaries of musical terms, and music periodicals.
“It is a working library of two people passionate about the history of music in Britain,” she said.
“It greatly extends and deepens the National Library’s collections of rare prints and books, music, pictures and manuscripts from the musicological world of 17th to early 19th century Britain.”
Dr Helman said the Kasslers had added to the collection over many years which had proven a boon for NLA researchers.
The Excellencies of Musick, a free exhibition, is open daily in the Treasures Gallery on the ground floor of the National Library of Australia, Canberra. Until August 2025.
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