18,000 sheet music scores

previously unpublished dedications

From 2020, the new management team embarked on an ambitious project to revitalise the Conservatoire’s activities. They also discovered, in the attics, no fewer than 250 boxes that had been left to gather dust. In addition to the extraordinary collection of sheet music – some of which were autographed – this treasure trove unearthed from a century of’A History of Russian Emigration to Paris.

1931

The setting for the «glorious days»

Ever since its foundation in 1931, one of the aims of the Russian Musical Society Abroad has been to build up a collection of ’ historical archives »bringing together« everything to do with the glorious chapters in the history of Russian musical art », and particularly the sheet music.

The ever-increasing number of incoming items needed to be stored. As early as the summer of 1933, a few weeks after moving into the current premises, the teaching committee decided to set up a library. Following painstaking work to number and catalogue the sheet music, the teaching library will open at the start of the new school year.

Over the years, the Conservatoire’s archive collection has grown thanks to bequests from musicians – Russian and foreign, famous and little-known alike.

1944

Belaïeff Publishers saved from the fire

The fortunes of musicians have always been linked to those of the major music publishers. The most important of these, the timber merchant and patron of the arts Mitrofan Belaïeff (1836–1903), a pianist himself, was noted for the generosity of his donations.

When the Conservatoire was founded, it was his son, Boris Belaïeff, who is taking up the baton. In a letter, he announces that he is sending a copy of each of the musical works stored at the Leipzig headquarters, « as a free gift for your teaching library ».

During the Second World War, Leipzig was razed to the ground by bombing raids and all the musical scores were lost. In many cases, the only surviving copy is still, even today, held at the Rachmaninoff Institute.

2026

The Revival of the Educational Library

Over the years, the institution has become a veritable repository of Russian cultural heritage in Paris, extending far beyond the realm of music alone. Just like’Alexandre Gretchaninoff Alongside the bust you’ll find on the ground floor, thousands of emigrants – both famous and little-known – have bequeathed to the institution a portion of their memories.

In 2023, after thirty years of neglect, Arnaud Frilley, the new director, entrusted Professor Yulia Coric and her husband, Yves, with the painstaking task of cataloguing the sheet music. In total, there are exactly 18,854 sheet music scores and nearly 3 300 books and records.

Arnaud Frilley intends to take things a step further. A project is currently under way to reconstruct a ambitious fund, worthy of the founders, to turn the Rachmaninoff Conservatoire – now the Rachmaninoff Institute – into a centre for research and learning.

2026

A destiny rediscovered...

The 250 boxes of archive material that have been unearthed mainly contain scores musical items, some of which are unique or inscribed. They also contain other valuable documents (minutes of teaching meetings, programmes, photographs, letters…), which served as the «raw material» for the book’s original narrative Russian Lives in Paris, published by Éditions des Syrtes, and awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 2025.

Let us take an example of a life story that has been fully reconstructed thanks to the archives. Among the 18,554 sheet music items is an unknown title: « In the underground of Warsaw », [«In the Basements of Warsaw»], attributed to a forgotten Polish composer, a certain Piotr Kraczkiewicz. We were able to piece together his life story: a veteran of the Polish Home Army, he took part in the Warsaw Uprising alongside Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, the «Polish De Gaulle», before being deported to a camp north of Berlin.

In the post-war period, Piotr Kraczkiewicz maintained links with several prominent Allied figures, to whom he sent his compositions. Among them was a well-known figure, whose letter is reproduced below, translated from English:

My dear Mr Kraczkiewicz,
I would like to thank you for the copy of your music that you sent me, and for the dedication in your Hungarian Rhapsody, which is addressed to me.
I really appreciate this thoughtfulness.
With my thanks and best wishes for your happiness, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Roosevelt.