Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Papers of Miloš Velimirović , Accession #13082-b, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was given to Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, by Miloš Velimirović , 107 Cliff Custer Ct., Bridgewater, Virginia 22812, on August 17, 2005.

Biographical/Historical Information

Retired University of Virginia professor of music, Miloš Velimirović was born December 10, 1922, in Belgrade. He studied at the Belgrade Academy of Music and the University of Belgrade, where he earned a diploma in the history of fine arts. He later earned an MA and PhD at Harvard and then served on the faculty at Yale, 1957-1969, then the University of Wisconsin until 1973 and finally the University of Virginia until his retirement in 1993. A prolific writer of articles in scholarly journals, he also edited numerous other publications and wrote many reviews of books and recordings. Some of his seminal work has focused on the relationship between Slavic and Greek chant melodies of the Slavonic heirmoi.

Albert J. Swan was a member of an English family who settled in Russia, where he was born on October 9, 1890, at St. Petersburg, where he also attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He left to study law, languages and music at Oxford, England, emigrating to the United States in the 1920s. He taught first at the University of Virginia, and then jointly at Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges from 1926 until his retirement in 1959. Swan was first recognized as a writer on music and as a musicologist interested in the relationship between Russian church chant and folk song. His work as a composer produced four piano sonatas, six quartets, and much liturgical choral music, written mostly to old Slavonic texts for the Orthodox church, including a complete setting of the extensive Orthodox service, among others. He died on October 2, 1970, in Haverford, Pennsylvania.

Pavel Chesnokov was born on November 5, 1877, in Voskresensk. His father was a music teacher and conductor, and his mother was a singer. He was enrolled in the Moscow Synodal Choir School as a child where he remained as a faculty member after his graduation. He composed music for the services of the Orthodox Church and in 1913 enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory. Until his death in Moscow on March 14, 1944, he was occupied primarily with the teaching of choral techniques and conducting.

Scope and Content

The Miloš Velimirović papers consist of ca. 1400 items (3 Hollinger boxes, 1.5 linear feet), 1933-1990, donated by musicologist and scholar Miloš Velimirović , a specialist on medieval chants of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Eastern European music. The bulk of the papers consist of personal and professional correspondence. Personal correspondence includes letters to and from friends and acquaintances and holiday greeting cards and newsletters. Correspondence is mainly in English but other languages include Russian, German, and French. Professional correspondence includes itineraries for travel to and reports on academic conferences, letters of recommendations for employment, critiques and editing of scholarly and academic writings, draft manuscripts of journal articles, and copies of papers written by music specialists on a variety of topics. There are also a number of papers related to Russian-born composer Alfred Swan, a colleague and friend of Velimirović. These include biographical and autobiographical materials, correspondence, and materials related to a collection of Swan papers donated in the 1990s to the University of Virginia where Swan taught in the 1920s. Of interest are accounts of Swan's experiences in revolutionary Russia and his ultimately successful effort to leave that war-torn country. Included in the Swan materials are papers related to Russian composer Pavel Chesnokov. Velimirović assembled the papers while preparing for publication in the United States all of Chesnokov's available letters. They include copies of correspondence written in the 1930s by Chesnokov to Swan and one of his students, John Davison. There are also several articles written by Swan on Russian church music, folk songs, and liturgical chant.

Arrangement

The papers are arranged in three series. Series I: Correspondence, is arranged alphabetically by topic and reverse chronologically by correspondent. Series II: International Musicological Society 1977 Congress Presentation. Series III: Alfred J. Swan papers.