“A Splendid Musical Selection: The Private and Public Albums of Giuseppe de Begnis”

With the example of Giuseppe de Begnis’s autograph album and published yearbook entitled The Carcanet (New York, 1842), musicologist Steven Zohn considers how compilations of small keepsakes relate to the nineteenth-century practice of “albuming:” the intertwined activities of collecting, preserving, remembering and sharing. De Begnis collected inscriptions from many celebrated musicians during his years as an opera singer and impressario in Italy, Great Britain and New York, and in an unusual traversal of the boundaries between private and public, published selections from the album in his yearbook, the first of its kind in the United States. Thus the tokens of friendship received by de Begnis in private became “elegant souvenirs” for the musical public.

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Arts Interdisciplinary Research (AIR) is a holistic research center and forum for creative and scholarly research across the arts that includes cutting-edge colloquia, exploratory seminars, lecture demonstrations, launches of research publications and creative works, reading groups, faculty talks, and stand-alone conferences initiated by the faculty of the Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts.