Fire Wrecks St. Petersburg Music Collection

[Cyxeris]

Fire Wrecks St. Petersburg Music Collection
Thu Feb 19, 1:36 PM ET

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian collection of rare sheet music was badly damaged on Thursday as firefighters fought a blaze in the historic St. Petersburg library that houses it.

Rescuers stood by to move the collection, which includes rare editions of Beethoven sonatas and etudes by Carl Czerny, but city officials decided against hauling the fragile paper out into the street while water was sprayed onto the fire.

The collection survived an earlier dousing in 2001 when the former Dutch church was flooded by a burst water pipe. The sheet music was badly damaged, as were 16,000 phonograph records.

The roof of the building was badly damaged in the fire. The three-story mansion was built in 1839 as a church for Dutch immigrants to the city. It was turned into a library in 1936.

The center of St Petersburg is packed with 19th century neo-classical and baroque palaces and suffers frequent blazes due to the buildings' highly flammable wooden timbers.

[elektro80]

Shit. That collection was really great. A tragedy!

[Cyxeris]

It's a travesty that such collections are kept in such dubious and threatening conditions. Something should be done, maybe the UN needs to get involved. A "posterity force"

[mosc]

The Return of the Prodigal Son
1665-1669
Rembrandt, Harmensz van Rijn

That wouldn't be a bad idea. I visted Leningrad in 1988. We sent to the Hermitage Museum which is the largest art gallery in Russia and is among the largest and most respected art museums in the world. The museum was founded in 1764 when Catherine the Great purchased a collection of 255 paintings from Berlin. Nowadays, the Hermitage has about 2.7 million exhibits and displays a full range of world art from Ancient Egypt to early 20th century Europe. The collection is huge and very exciting. The building has been restored very nicely, but there is no environmental control system, other than opening windows. We were shocked to see priceless Rembrandts hanging next to open windows (no screens even) with direct sunlight on them.

I hope things are better now, but I'm not optimistic.

[Cyxeris]

Oh Mosc, dont be so sentimental. It's only art. You know, the stuff that brings beauty and order and focus to humankind and can generally never ever be replaced once lost. Sheesh!

Cyx

[mosc]