The Music in the Finspong Collection

The Finspong collection (Finspongssamlingen), kept in the Norrköping City Library, constitutes one of the largest historical book collections in Sweden, comprising about 35,000 volumes. It includes a considerable amount of music: about ninety printed publications and thirty music manuscripts, almost all collections of multiple pieces, dating from 1600 to the late nineteenth century. Many of the pieces included in the manuscript volumes are known to have survived only there and more than a fifth of the printed publications are seemingly unica. The manuscripts and printed publications, as well as the repertoire included in them, have varied origins, such as France, the Southern Netherlands, the Dutch Republic, northern German-speaking regions and Scandinavia. This international character of the collection can provide a point of departure for studies addressing issues related to, for example, music transfer and different ways of adaptation of the music to a local context.