Laurence Picken Papers
Catalog Record: http://lccn.loc.gov/2011570511
General International Standard for Archival Description
Music Division Library of Congress Washington, D.C.
Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Music Division, 2011
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Version 2002
collection
Laurence Picken Papers 1900-2001 (bulk 1936-1999)
Picken, Laurence Ernest Rowland
Biographical History for: Laurence Picken Papers 1900-2001 (bulk 1936-1999)
Biographical Note British zoologist and musicologist Laurence Ernest Rowland Picken was born on July 16, 1909 in Nottingham, England. He studied piano as a child, and composed music during the mid-1920s and 1930s. In 1928, he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and studied natural sciences. During the 1930s, he held a Rockefeller Studentship in the Geneva School of Chemistry for two years where he became fluent in French and German and conducted groundbreaking scientific research. He finished his Ph.D. in 1935. In 1944, he became a fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and in 1946 assistant director of research in the zoology faculty, spending the next twenty years researching and teaching biology. In 1944, he joined Joseph Needham’s scientific mission to China where he studied Chinese music and learned to play the zither. In 1959, Picken was appointed visiting professor of zoology at Washington University. He published his landmark book The Organization of Cells and other Organisms the following year in 1960. Though employed as a scientist, Picken published his first musical paper in 1950 on the identification of an unknown fugue by Bach. His reputation as a musicologist grew along with his knowledge and understanding of Asian culture and he continued to publish papers and encyclopedia entries on Asian music throughout 1950s. Picken served as editor for the journal of the International Folk Music Council in the 1960s. In 1966, he was appointed assistant director of research in the faculty of oriental studies at Cambridge. In 1977, he started the journal Musica Asiatica which he would co-edit until 1984. Picken donated over 700 musical instruments to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge in 1977. The music of the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties was the major focus of Picken's lifelong scholarship. In 1972, he began to transcribe and analyze pieces from the secular Tang court repertory in Japan which led to a projected 25-volume series Music from the Tang Court (1981-2000), of which Picken would complete only seven volumes. Picken also wrote on the music of Turkey, central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In 1975, he published The Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey, a comprehensive study of Turkish instruments. In 1990, Picken and N.J. Nickson supervised and directed a program of Tang and Song dynasty transcriptions at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Starting in 1998, Picken was also involved with the Ancient Asian Music Project at the Library of Congress. He died at the age of 97 on March 16, 2007, in Cambridge, England.
Scope and Content Note The Laurence Picken Papers span the period 1900-2001 with the majority of materials dating from 1936-1999. The materials include project files, research materials, business and personal correspondence, published and unpublished writings, scores of Picken's own compositions, and photographs. Materials in the Project Files series are centered around Picken's studies in East Asian music and range from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. These contain essay notes and drafts, translations, concert programs, miscellaneous research materials, instrument collection files, and a handful of personal files. Picken's articles and research materials for Musica Asiatica and his influential Music from the Tang Court stand out as items of particular interest. His original folder titles have been used where appropriate, although it is possible that some contain alternative or erroneous spellings and transliterations. The Correspondence series consists of personal and business letters sent or received by Laurence Picken. Many of the letters relating to his activities discuss aspects of Picken's collaborative studies and publications between 1936 and 2001. The letters to his family include postcards from his travels abroad. The Writings series contains articles, essays, and lectures by Picken, his notebooks, and books written for Picken. In addition, there are offprints by Picken, his students, and colleagues that were used in research. Materials in the Music series include manuscript and printed scores of Picken's compositions, dating from the 1920s and 1930s. There are also transcriptions of traditional East Asian music made by Picken and others between the 1950s and 2000. Rounding out the collection is the small Photographs series which contains images of Picken, traditional Chinese and Japanese musical instruments, and various performances of world music, dating from the 1930s to 1990s.
series
Project Files, circa 1950-1999
Chiefly research materials related to published papers and scholarly topics of interest to Picken. Includes photocopies of various original Chinese documents, drafts of publications, correspondence, and notes.
file
"Acculturation and the Tōgaku repertory" (Picken/Marett)
Afterwards for Picken, Adkins, Page
"An Afghan quail-lure of typological and acoustic interest"
"Anatolian drum and shawm come to a Greek smuggler's village"
Ancient Chinese songs
"Ancient matters" - Koji-ruien
Ang Kunshan
Arthur Cooper's lecture and correspondence
Bach quotations from the 18th Century
Banshikichō
Bibliographic data on key manuscripts
British Council: "Science in Chungking"
Bugaku
Burmese music
Burmese music - draft papers and correspondence with Muriel Williamson
Catalogue of documents of music from the collection of the Fushimi-no-miya family
Champa
Ch'ao-chou requiem
Ch'ên
Ch'in schools
Chiang K'uei
Children's sound producing toys
China
Chinese Buddist music
Chinese friction chordophones
Chinese folksongs
Chinese music
Chinese texts relative to Toroden
Chū Ōga Ryūteki Yōroku-fu
Chuang-chên
Concert programs
Conflation and analysis
Correspondence and translations by Ishibashi/Fukushima
Dai Nihon shi
Daoist white-stone [i.e. White Stone Daoist]: Jiang Kui - collected songs and pieces
Double-sided printing of Sadachō items
Dunhuang lute music (Rockwell)
Dunhuang piba-pu
Encyclopedia Britannica
Ethiopic liturgical music
"The fate of Tang music in Japan"
Fengshen Zhuan
"Finger techniques for the zithers sô-no-koto and kin in Heian times" (Mitani/Picken)
First transcriptions of Meiji and Shōwa printed shō tablatures
Fragments of Fengxue
"Frequency doubling chordophones" (Adkins/Williams/Flowers/Picken)
Fujiwara genealogies
"The functional names of notes in Modai note-sets"
Gagaku
Gagaku (Harich-Schneider)
Gakka-roku (excerpts)
Gidayu
Gogenfu (copy of F.R.W.'s transcripts)
GoGen Kin-Fu
Notes on gougche-pu derived from Yang YenLin and Zhang Shipeng
Guan's comments on Tōgaku titles in Hakuga nofue-fu
Haloun: notes for the burning of the books
Hayashi Kenzō
Hirade
Honorary doctorate, 1988
Hosho-fu
Hōshō ritsu-kan
Hyōjō
Ichikotsuchō
Instrument collection
"The instrumentarium of a village in Northeast Thailand"
Jao Tsung-I preface, 1990
Japanese historical linguistics
JCYR
"Jew's harps and mouth organs"
Jiang Kui
Jiaofang-ji
Jiegulu
Jinchi-yoroku
Junior sinologues
Kaichū-fu
"A keyboard fugue by Bach"
Kikutei: "Pieces for biwa, notated in calendrically correct tunings, from the Kikutei-ke Monjo of the Heian Hakubutsukan"
Ko-fu ritsu
Korean court dance under Sejong and Sejo
Kucha music influence
Kunaichō shoryōbu
Kyōkun shō
Libo songs in Gi-shi Gakufu
Library of Congress exhibition, 1999
"A lion dance of the Song Dynasty"
Mabuchi Usaburō
"The magic of children's sound-producing toys"
Mahmut Ragip Gazimihal
"Making a Khaein" (Adkins/Page/Picken)
Marett transcription of Chōkōraku
Material from "Ancient echos of China"
"Midnight music" (Yebanyue)
Miscellaneous articles
Miscellaneous materials in Chinese
Miscellaneous music in Chinese
Miscellaneous research materials
Mongolian articles
"Music for a lion-dance" of the Song Dynasty
Music of the Tang Court
Music Research Institute of Chicago (Peking)
Musica Asiatica articles
"Musical implications of Chinese songtext with unequal lines and the significance of nonsense syllables, with special reference to artsongs of Song Dynasty"
"Musical inter-relationships between Tang Chinese compositions; Three items with titles in the names of imperial military leaders"
Musikethnologische Jahresbibliographie Europas
Namguan
Namguan Patsy Choo
Nawa contents
Neopolitan cries
Notes
Notes on Hichiriki scores: Nakahara-roseishō and others
Notes on mensural notation in Ō-dai
Notes on mouth organ scoring
Notes on music manuscripts purhcased by Elling Eide
"Notes on some important Togaku manuscripts in Tenri University Library"
Notes on tablature system of Kofu/Hōshōfu (Ritsu/Ryokan)
Ojikichō
Okugaki
Personalia and CV
Pipa techniques and terms
Pipafu
Picken Collection of Musical Instruments, Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Picken donations
Picken library
Picken's criticism of Robert T. Mok's "Ancient musical instruments unearthed from the number one Han tomb at Ma Want Tui, Changsha"
Plainsong notes
The 'plucked drums'
Porcelain
Publication agreements
R.H. van Gulik's bronze
Qui Jingsun
Radio talk / Chinese 7-string zither
Rakusaidō Gagaku manuscripts (Kazuo Fukushima)
Reviews and acknowledgements
Reviews by Laurence Picken
Revue bibliographique de sinologie
Ruisō-chiyō
Ryō-ō
Ryūmeishō
Samaifu glossary and definitions
Samaifu copy of Maifu of Shunnōden, Satto and Juha
Sandai jitsuroku
Sango-yōroku
Second Samaifu copy from Tsuji sensei
Secret dragon flute score
Semsi Yastiman
SGYR
Shanghai Conservatory
"The shapes of the Shi Jing song texts and their musical implications"
Shi Jing
Shi Jing paper (Musica Asiatica, 1977)
Shinnō hajinraku
Shinraryō-ō Sairyōshū
Shō and Bisa part parallelism (Shō part is cantus firmus)
Song texts
Sōnokoto tunings
The sound of Areston (Gershevitch)
"The sound producing instrumentarium of a village in North-East Thailand"
Specimen tune in all Chinese modes at same pitch, both pentatonic and heptatonic
"String/table angles in harps, from the third millenium BC to the present"
Taigenshō Kyō Kunshō
Taiheiraku
T'ang dance notation
Taoist ritual music
Teheran congress 1961
Thai mouth organs, correspondence with Peter Bee papers
Thai music "The making of a Rhāen" correspondence
Tōdai-ji Yōroku Kaigen-e
Tōgaku pieces transcribed
Toyonaga Satomi papers
Transcriptions from Festival of GI
"Tunes of T'ang date for the 'get trasure song'?" (Jones/Picken)
Tunings and pitch measurements (Ruttner)
Turkey
Turkish reviews and letters
Tweleve ritual melodies of the T'ang Dynasty
'Ulili
Utsucho - Monogatari; also copy of Noguchi's paper on Utsucho-Monogatari
"Water birds on river islands"
Wang Zhaojun
Wamyō ruijūshō
"The war of the musicians or lives of canonised spirits of the Taoist Heaven" (Zhu Chanyu)
Wei-shi Yuepu
Xeroxes of small books
Yuefu
Yuefu shiqi - song structure, length and rhymes
Yuefu zalu
YFST
Zhong Yang, Yin Yue, Xue Yuan, Xue Bao
Zhu Xi
Zoku-Kyōkunshō
Zokukoto: Rokudan no shirabe nofu
Correspondence, 1900-2001
Chiefly letters concerning scholarly projects, family matters, and travel.
subseries
Letters to Picken
Foreign language letters, 1968-1998
Undated
Letters from Picken
1999-2001 and undated
Family Correspondence
Family to Picken, 1939-1945
Picken to family, 1950-1990s
Related Correspondence
1900-2001 and undated
Writings, circa 1930-2000
Articles, essays, lectures, and notebooks. Most materials have accompanying correspondence and notes. Includes offprints of works by various authors (including Picken) used in the course of research.
Lectures
"Chinese music of a thousand years ago"
"A comparative journey of the musics of the world"
"The documentary history of the Tōgaku repertory"
"Micro-ornament"
Miscellaneous lectures
"Music aspects of transcription and analysis of the Tōgaku repertory"
"Music at the Tang Court" (Hume)
"Music for a Tang Dynasty ballet of the 7th century"
"Music from the Tang Court" (Saibara)
"A musical background to treasures of Ancient China"
"Musical instruments in Turkey"
"Musical survivals of the Tang and Sung Dynasties"
Seoul, South Korea
"Tang music of the Sung Dynasty"
"Towards the archaic music of pre-Nora Japan"
"Turkish folk music and musical instruments"
"Turkish music"
"Turkish poetry"
University of Washington, Seattle
Unidentified
Notebooks
Asian Music Club
Asian notebooks, 1972-1974, 1980
Biographical notebook
Chiefly business cards, pamphlets, and photographs
Buddhist music
Ch'au-chou requiem service
Chinese and Sino-Japanese notebooks
Miscellaneous notebooks
Taoist music
Tōgaku notebooks: draft catalogue of pieces, movements, and occurrence in manuscripts
Turkish notebooks
Papers Edited by Picken
Blench, Roger. "The morphology and distribution of Sub-Saharan musical instruments of North African, Middle Eastern, and Asian origin"
Craig, Dale A. "Ancient legacy of music: a Min Dynasty collection of Chin songs"
Fletcher, Peter. World musics in context
Fukushima, Kazuo. "Descriptive catalogue of the Rakusaidō-Gagaku manuscripts in the Research Archives for Japanese Music of Ueno Gakuen College"
Marett, Allan J.
Miyoko, Kôkawa. "A method of improvising music at school"
Wei, Deng. "Historical and stylistic development in the Chinese four-stringed lute Pipa and in Pipa music"
Widdess, Richard. "The reconstruction of early Indian music from notation"
Williamson, Muriel C. "The correlation between speech-tones of text-syllables and their musical settings in a Burmese classical song"
Offprints about Chinese Music
"D" - "Picard"
"Picken" - "Z"
Books Written for Picken
Three bound essays in honor of Dr. Laurence E. R. Picken
Music, circa 1923-2000
Manuscript and printed scores of original Picken compositions and transcriptions of traditional East Asian music.
Original Compositions
Canon, waltz and jig
Composition sketchbooks, 1923-1927
Composition sketchbooks, 1928-1936
Compositions and sketches
Concert for two pianos
Five songs 1934
Four songs
Jabuke and Groždja
Moralité du petit chaperon rouge
Prelude to foreign parts
Les Saintes Maries de la mer
Sonata movement: Slovenja
Sonatina
Transcriptions
"The Emperor destroys the military formation"
Folk dances choreographed and notated by Liu Fengxue Essen (1971), under Albrecht Knust
"Haguga no fue-fu" (Marett)
"Korean court dance" (Siyong mubo)
"Lion dance"
Miscellaneous transcriptions
"Music for a thousand autumns"
"Myit-zu thaká nat-pàn Bwe"
"Namguan"
"O-dai hajinraku"
"Occidental diversions around an Oriental tune" (Albright)
"Sandai-en" (Arthur Cooper's lecture)
"Shi Jing"
"T'ai P'ing Yüeh/Taiheiraku"
"Toraden"
"Tsuwano"
Walker, Robert compositions
"Waves of the blue sea"
"The wine is clear"
Wolpert, Rembrandt F., 1975
Photographs, circa 1930-circa 1990
Individual and group portraits, musical instruments, world music performances, and other images. Includes negatives.
Instruments and performers
Miscellany
Picken, alone or with others, 1930s-1960s
Stages making a Shō reed