Hoboken, Anthony (EN)

Hoboken Anthony, *23 March 1887 Rotterdam, †1 November 1983 Zurich, a Dutch bibliographer and collector of early music prints. Between 1906 and 1909, he studied at the Technische Hochschule in Delft, whilst also taking music lessons with A. Verhey. In 1910, he began his music studies at the Hochsches Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main (harmony with B. Sekles, composition with I. Knorr). From 1919, he began to build up a collection of first editions of music. In 1925, he moved to Vienna, where he continued his music studies with H. Schenker until 1934; on Schenker’s initiative, he founded the Archiv für Photogramme musikalischer Meisterhandschriften at the music department of the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. In 1936, he began cataloguing his own collection, which was already extensive at that time. Two years later, he settled in Switzerland, where he continued to expand and catalogue his valuable music collection. Hoboken was honoured with numerous awards and honorary titles for his immense contribution to the global field of music documentation: in 1932 he received the Silver Order of Merit of the Republic of Austria; in 1950 he became a member of the Advisory Council of the Department of Music at Princeton University; and in 1954 – a member of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung. In 1957, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Kiel, and in 1958 by the University of Utrecht. Hoboken’s passion for collecting, and his contribution to cataloguing and analysing his collections, are of exceptional significance. The collection comprises several thousand printed works by the great masters, ranging from Frescobaldi through Bach and the classical composers to Brahms, as well as theoretical works and music literature. The core of the collection consists of first and early editions of Haydn’s compositions, to which Hoboken devoted over 30 years of work, resulting in a catalogue of the composer’s works.

Literature: O. Jonas The Photogram-Archives in Vienna, “Music and Letters” XV, 1934; L. Nowak Das Archiv für Photogramme musikalischer Handschriften, “Österreichische Musikzeitschrift” XI, 1957; A. van Hoboken. Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. J. Schmidt-Görg, Mainz 1962; Das Haydn-Archiv der Musiksammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Vienna 1977.