Collection 20 - University of Toronto Music Library collection

In 1918 Toronto College of Music, founded in 1888, amalgamated with the Canadian Academy of Music, and in 1924 the academy was absorbed by the Toronto Conservatory of Music. The Toronto Conservatory of Music then gained the assets of both its rivals, including over one hundred vocal and orchestral scores. The University had taken over the ownership and operation of the conservatory by 1921, and therefore this collection became the foundation of the University of Toronto's music library.

Hugh Hornby Langton's, (University of Toronto's Chief Librarian, 1892-1922), donated a over a dozen scores from his own collection including orchestral works by Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn in piano duet arrangements from his courting days, which constitutes the University of Toronto's first efforts in collection building for the Music Library. More significantly, he had just returned from a European buying trip for the library, and its results included the addition of a dozen books on music, plus recent scores such as Stravinsky's Chant du rossignol and Sacre du printemps, and of several early tone poems by Richard Strauss.

Currently the library holds over 300,000 books, scores, periodicals and microforms.The Sniderman Recordings Collection, 180,000 sound recordings, from cylinders to blu-ray. The Olnick Rare Book Room, 2,500 volumes exemplifying the history of music and of music editing, performance and printing -- from liturgical manuscripts and early printed treatises, to first editions of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Gershwin, and early Canadian sheet music and tune books. A significant number of 18th- and 19th-century opera full scores, with particular strength in the French repertoire, complement the large libretto holdings of the Central Library.