(2) For a small contribution (to be forwarded to the Roberta Bitgood scholarship fund): Roberta’s collection of ceramic chorister figurines (includes 1 conductor, and 1 keyboard monk with two singing monk companions.

(3) Free to a willing home: small collection of musical instruments (1 recorder) and art objects (a pair of violin and cello bookends, a ceramic grand piano candy box, a boy chorister duo wall plaque).

Phone me anytime at 617/538-5185 to leave a message about your interest.

Grace

The first group is comprised of recordings from the organ literature (and one organ workshop) as performed by a number of organ luminaries of the 20th century, and a few of the less well-known artists and professionals, many of whom Roberta counted as personal friends.

Performers include: Mildred Andrews, E. Power Biggs, David Craighead, Catherine Crozier, Marcel Dupré, Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, Lynwood Farnam, Virgil Fox, Howard Kelsey, Max Miller, Thomas Murray, Robert Noehren, Calvert Shenk, Albert Schweitzer, Carl Staplin, Carl Weinrich, William Whitehead, and Alec Wyton.

A few items from this group were claimed by AGO members in attendance on June 6: “Virgil Fox at Symphony Hall,” E. Power Biggs’ album entitled “Stars and Stripes Forever,” an organ workshop by Alec Wyton, and the two recordings made by William Whitehead (including one featuring the organ of the Philadelphia Academy of Music).

The remainder of the above group (41 items) remains available for you to claim: the updated list is available here. If you are interested in any of these, please give me a call.

The second group of recordings features choral works, both important and little-known, as performed and conducted by groups and conductors that were of interest to Roberta. A list is not available at this time, again give me a call if you’re interested.

(1) Plaster of Paris bas-relief of St. Cecilia at the organ (round, white, about 5″ in diameter, with an embedded hook at the back for hanging on the wall).

(2) Framed print of the 17th-century painting St. Cecilia and an Angel, by the Italian Orazio Gentileschi, held at the National Gallery of Art (a small framed poster, about 11″ x 14″ including the frame). For interesting information about this painter and his daughter, see: http://www.cosmos-club.org/web/journals/2004/schiff.html

(3) Leaded stained-glass votive light container (about 7″ high, and about 3″ x 3″ square).

(4) Plaster of Paris bust of JS Bach (about 10″ high, pretty substantial).

(5) Plaster of Paris bust of Beethoven (about 7″ high).

Additionally, the former national AGO president’s gavel was turned over to current AGO New London County Chapter Dean, Jesse Glaude, for use by himself and future New London County Chapter deans in carrying out their parliamentary responsibilities.

With appropriate gadgets inside or attached to your computer, you can listen to the program easily. I’ll keep looking for more Bitgood audio streams and add to this post when more are found. Meanwhile, stay tuned for performances by Roberta Bitgood herself–a challenge to put online, but I’d like to try. We have already processed audio files derived from Roberta’s two known LP recordings. Depending on how the technical issues are resolved, selections from these would certainly be appropriate additions to the Roberta Bitgood Commons site. I hope to make them available from the Memorabilia page. If this effort is successful, I will post a separate notice about it.

This is a new installation of the WordPress blogging software, and also a new version release (2.5.1, which we are still getting used to). One purpose of RB News & Notes is to provide a virtual space where friends of the Roberta Bitgood Commons and others interested in my mother’s life and career may learn more about newly available information and materials uncovered in processing her professional collections. When new materials are added to the Roberta Bitgood Commons site, whether they be previously unpublished reminiscences, newly scanned documents, images, or other media, a notice will be posted here.

RB News & Notes is not intended to be a “blog about blogging” (so we will keep documentation and discussion of technical matters to a minimum). Neither is it a blog for denizens of the “blogosphere” (there are plenty of those elsewhere). The main idea is to provide a convenient yet dynamic resource for sharing new Bitgood information, such that the community of interest can be reached, and the task of disposing of the Bitgood collections can be facilitated. In short, RB News & Notes is designed more as a virtual bulletin board than as a blog.

In general, we do not plan to allow user comments, in hopes of keeping the maintenance of RB News & Notes to a minimum. Instead, if users find information here which they wish to pursue (for example, if they wish to claim a multiple set of choir parts that has been offered), they may send e-mail to the address provided in the relevant post (or get in touch by phone) to arrange transmittal of the materials they would like to claim. Comments generally turn out to be spam, sorry!

(1) the second floor studio

(2) the ground floor bedroom

(3) the basement

(4) the ground floor passageway

As of June 1, I am working in the basement. In this location alone, I have uncovered materials fitting all 7 categories listed in the previous post. To review, these are:

(I) Clippings

(II) Printed programs

(III) Correspondence

(IV) Notebooks

(V) Music formats

(VI) Books and pamphlets

(VII) Periodicals

Between 1999 and 2003, after resigning from her final position as organist and choir director of Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Waterford, Connecticut, Roberta Bitgood lived at home under the care of her family with the help of an able part-time staff. In 2003 she moved to the Odd Fellows Home of Connecticut in Groton, where she remained until her death in 2007. Her papers now formed two separate corpora, one collection already owned by Connecticut College and partly described by Carolyn Johnson, Librarian of the Greer Music Library, the other collection remaining at her home in Quaker Hill, still unprocessed.

The task of organizing and analyzing the unprocessed collection, to determine whether transmittal of parts of it to the Shain Library (as annexes to the existing archive) would be desirable or appropriate, was complicated by the fact that some materials had remained embedded in the business of Dr. Bitgood’s daily life until its regular patterns were either disrupted or forgotten, while some others had apparently not been seen since their storage in containers prior to moving to Connecticut many years before.

Another problem was the unknown degree to which particular materials duplicated papers and printed resources already collected and maintained by the Shain Library’s Department of Special Collections as described above. It seemed likely, however, that parts of the unprocessed collection represented unique documentation of Roberta Bitgood’s career which could justifiably be annexed to the Roberta Bitgood Archive and made accessible to future researchers.

A bird’s-eye view of the scope of the unprocessed collection (hereafter, the Bitgood Papers Annex) would need to include the following categories:

(I) Clippings

Clippings about Roberta Bitgood

Other clippings (RB collected or received in correspondence)

(II) Printed programs

Recital programs (organ, given by Roberta Bitgood)

Recital programs (organ, RB attended or received in correspondence)

Convention and workshop programs (mostly AGO, but various auspices)

Other musical programs (featuring Roberta Bitgood as a participant)

Other musical programs (RB attended or received in correspondence)

Printed orders of worship (churches served by Roberta Bitgood)

Printed orders of worship (featuring Roberta Bitgood as a participant)

Printed orders of worship (RB attended or received in correspondence)

(III) Correspondence

Correspondence and papers—professional activities (AGO business, church employment, organ consultations, guest appearances: recitals, workshops, etc.)

Correspondence and papers—publications, related contracts, royalties, proposals

Correspondence and papers—honors, awards, citations

Correspondence and papers—alumni/volunteer activities

Correspondence and papers—personal, family

Miscellaneous records

(IV) Notebooks

(V) Music formats

Music manuscripts—unpublished Bitgood autographs, sketches, unknown/partial works

Musical scores—oratorios, cantatas, operettas

Published music by Roberta Bitgood

Sheet music and collections—liturgical and sacred music (choral, vocal solo)

Sheet music and collections—organ solo

Sheet music and parts—instrumental, organ and other instruments

Sheet music and parts—secular (choral, vocal solo, with piano or organ)

(VI) Books and pamphlets

Hymnals and other liturgical collections

Prayer books and other devotional literature

Religious press non-fiction

Trade press non-fiction

(VII) Periodicals

The American Organist

The Diapason

The Tracker

In attendance at this revival and appreciation of the Bitgood musical corpus were friends from the First Church community and Hartford area, as well as choir singers from Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Waterford, who had themselves sung most of the works performed here as members of Roberta’s choir in years past. My husband Stuart and I were joined, too, by Dave and Judy Culler (close friends of Roberta since the early 1960s, when they had been members of her choir in Detroit, Michigan). Judy even contributed a violin performance to the program, in remembrance of the many occasions when she had played the same piece with my mother over the years of their friendship. Another group in attendance was a contingent of Bitgood friends and associates from the New London County chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

The choirs, soloists, and players all gave heartily of themselves in providing us with thought-provoking renderings of works we thought we knew inside out. Their attitude of enthusiasm and reverence for my mother’s achievement allowed listeners to grasp the sincerity of her spiritual quest as she explored, through her own musical language, the meaning of her chosen texts. It was an important milestone for me to get a clear glimpse of what motivated my mother’s earliest works and to experience admiration for her simply as a member of the public. I sent thanks to David and the choirs of First Church, as follows:

Sincere thanks to all who sang, rang, played and conducted in the Bitgood festival on May 18. Your inspired performances made everyone present appreciate my mother’s music in new ways. The whole event was a wonderful expression of tribute to her as a person, too.

Cordially,

Grace Wiersma