One of the largest private vocal music collections in the country is in Arkansas. That’s not a typo. Glendower Jones is the sole proprietor of Classical Vocal Reprints, or CVR. You’ve likely seen his advertisements in the NATS Journal and here in Classical Singer. I had the opportunity to visit his treasures.
Drive past the rolling Ozark hills of Arkansas into the land of Wal-Mart and the Razorbacks, down a steep driveway and, finally, beneath a lovely tree canopy you will see the home office of CVR. Surprisingly, only one UPS truck has gotten stuck in the driveway. The sidewalk to the front door is occasionally inhabited by copperhead snakes, and road runners are often seen in the yard. There are also several generations of spoiled raccoons that come up to peer in the deck window nightly looking for the bananas the Joneses buy in bulk. And many deer have been born in the yard. Even without all the “wildlife,” it couldn’t be farther from NYC, the birthplace of CVR.
Last fall the publisher/music distributer Classical Vocal Reprints had a 20 percent back-to-school sale that was both thrilling, because it combined two of my favorite loves: saving money and sheet music, and terrifying, because it was also a plea to help a small business owner stay afloat. We have all seen the changes in the publishing industry and its exciting new technologies, but a consequence is that old favorites like T.I.S. Music Bookstore (closed in 2011 after more than 40 years in Bloomington, Ind.), Colony Music Store (closed 2012 after 64 years in business in NYC), Patelson’s Music House (NYC store closed in 2009 after 89 years), Haverville (closed near Boston in 2012 after more than 20 years), Music Center of San Francisco (closed in 2012 after 45 years), and on and on, are closing. Each closing store cites the trend toward direct Internet retailing that bypasses the traditional storefronts.
Panic set in as I scrambled to place an order. I’ve been ordering from CVR off and on since grad school. When I needed to learn the “Composer’s Aria” but didn’t have the cash to buy the very costly full vocal score, I was able to buy the aria a la carte for a few dollars. When I wanted to explore new composers like Lori Laitman, Gordon Myers, and Ben Moore, CVR had what I wanted and then some. When I couldn’t find elsewhere the gorgeous Chaminade pieces that Anne Sophie von Otter recorded, I was able to get them at CVR.
Glendower Jones has also generously donated music to the NATS Intern program for years so that young teachers can discover new music and grow their collection. CVR is one of the few remaining places you can still call and speak to someone who has knowledge of the repertoire.
“He’s a real thinking person,” says coach, conductor, accompanist, and composer Benton Hess about Jones. “He knows so much about the repertoire and what is available in the world. Now that Patelson’s is closed, Brown’s across from Lincoln Center is gone . . . I don’t know who else I could get in touch with if I didn’t have Glendower. Glendower is the answer—any question in the world, Glendower is the answer.”
The Beginning
Glendower Jones started as a trombone player working on a master’s in sacred ministry music at Southern Methodist University. When embouchure issues began to hinder his playing and threatened completion of the degree, he began studying voice in earnest. He wanted to study with a man, but those studios were full. Fortunately, the young and glamorous Barbara Hill-Moore, then in her first year at SMU, began teaching him. Ultimately, he transferred to the studio of Bruce Foote and, finally, Thomas Hayward. Hayward suggested Jones attend Banff Music Centre and, with the help of a scholarship from church members from the John D Harvey Company, he was able to head to Canada for the festival. While there, Martin Isepp suggested that Jones move to NYC. And, so, in August of 1978 the adventure began.
Upon arrival in NYC, Jones (a baritone) quickly landed a singing job at St. Thomas—a post he would hold for 20 years. After a tour of Figaro, fellow cast member Bronwyn Thomas (who played Cherubino) introduced Glendower to Joseph Patelson. “I met Joseph, and we got to be friends,” Jones recalls. “I’d go upstairs and have a seat, and we’d just talk about things.”
In February of 1985 Jones began working for Patelson and he stayed until 1990. Working at Patelson’s had more benefits than Jones could have anticipated at the time. He spent his days surrounded by music and talking to musicians. This fed his love of books and research, and he unknowingly struck on his life’s work.
The elder Patelson had in his possession music that was no longer in print and had started “The Rare Catalogue Series” to provide copies done by an outside printer on “blueprint-style” paper. Publishers at the time weren’t interested in public domain music, and Patelson was proud to be able to provide this service to his customers. Jones tried his hand at making an improved version, and when he showed Patelson he could do it better, his new career began.
“I didn’t get any extra salary, but I got a store credit—and with my 40 percent employee discount, I was able to grow my collection quickly,” Jones recalls. While he learned about this new untapped market, he also was getting to know the customers and what they really wanted.
When Jones finally decided to strike out on his own, the start was a slow one that required a combination of part-time jobs. In addition to his work at St. Thomas, he emptied trash at a travel agency—and the agency owners, who were friends from St. Thomas Church, allowed him to print on their machines the two or three copies he was selling per week.
After a few years, Jones finally had the ability to take on his first printer lease, and in 1987 he set up shop in his fifth-floor Manhattan walk-up apartment. Meticulously repairing and redefining worn print from old scores, and hauling reams of paper up the stairs and UPS boxes down the stairs, became his new life—and collecting unpublished or out-of-publication scores and catalogues became his passion.
Earlier that year a building fire ruined much of his collection and killed one of the downstairs neighbors. With three months’ saved rent after the fire, Jones produced his first collection of Gounod songs and stored the enormous palate of 1,000 scores at the travel agency. He admits he should have created 500 instead of 1,000 copies (many of which he still has) and learned that producing one or two at a time made the most sense.
Much of the current collection has grown through purchases from Patelson’s, hunting through bookstores, and acquiring other collections. One such collection was a large inventory from Lincoln Square Music that had been stored in the Ansonia Hotel. He maxed out two credit cards to purchase it—it was huge, and Gerry Hancock, organist/choirmaster from St. Thomas, generously offered a long closet behind the choir room rent free. When Jones finally left St. Thomas, the still-growing collection was moved to Pennsylvania for a year and a half until he found an apartment in Riverdale, in the Bronx.
Every time the collection moved, so did the copiers—which are as heavy and awkward as any piano. Electricians needed to rewire to accommodate the machines, and when the weight of the paper, music, and machines began causing cracks in the ceilings of downstairs apartments, he rented a second downstairs apartment on bedrock for the copying and binding operation, which required many ironing boards as a staging area to get the folds of the music to lie properly. CVR remained in the Bronx until 2006.
The early years in the New York area apartments meant some special delivery customer service was possible, such as runs down to the curb to meet singers and directors in waiting cars, including Renée Fleming (for Robert le diable by Meyerbeer) and director Francesca Zambello (for Le Comte Ory by Rossini in French). Thomas Hampson has often used Jones’ collection as a resource for his extensive CD output and even helped organize his reference library. Jones sold Hampson the Smithsonian edition of Foster songs that helped with his American Dreamer CD and also managed to find Berlioz songs in lower keys—a feat which, at the time, normally required a hunting expedition in Europe. He also gladly opened his doors to Victoria Etnier Villamil as she worked on A Singer’s Guide to the American Art Song.
Collecting catalogues has proven an important part of Jones’ education. Part of CVR’s success is due to his ability to find what singers, coaches, and conductors are looking for. Once, he found a first edition of Aida but bartered it to John Lubrano for old catalogues. Information is valuable.
“For me to do my job, I need to first know something exists and that it was published, and that’s what the catalogues did,” he says. Rummaging through used bookstores and hustling to beat other collectors to purchase rare volumes through the antiquarian dealer catalogues gradually grew the collection that he still sometimes prefers over weeding through misinformation on the Internet.
Arkansas
As NYC rent and utility costs rose, profit margins dwindled and space became an issue. Jones and his wife Marthe began to look for another place to raise their daughter and continue the business. With family ties in Arkansas and a relatively cheap housing market, they flew out to buy a house and then tackled the move. After signing for the new house, the Jones family found that moving Glendower’s business and their Manhattan-sized personal possessions would cost $40,000. It was too late to back out, so thanks to an American Express Business Card, they charged the move and one and a half tractor trailers of music headed west to Arkansas. It has been 6 years, and the moving expense has only recently been paid off.
The collection has been seen by only a handful of people and as one of those lucky few, let me tell you, it is astounding. After blocking the escape of the resident CVR cat, you walk into a space not like a library, but more like an organized hoarder’s space. To a musician and song-repertory lover, it is heaven. Vocal music on strong metal shelves from floor to ceiling cover most of the 1,700 square feet and would fill about 2,000 banker’s boxes. Filing cabinets fill another room along with many boxes that have never been unpacked. Jones estimates that between his own catalog of over 5,000 titles and those of the publishers he is a retailer for, he carries many more than 200,000 song titles.
Running a small business is, in any financial climate, a challenge. Jones has three industrial printers—two owned and one leased at $1,100 a month. When he goes beyond his 350,000-page limit, huge surcharges are tacked on at the end of the year. In the summers, the family upstairs is often in the deep freeze so that the CVR machines in the basement can keep running smoothly and the collection can remain preserved. The paper trimmer—a small machine whose only function is to make the edges smoother for pianists turning pages—was itself $1,700! Jones’ clients appreciate the good-quality paper he uses, and the cost for that has also skyrocketed.
He actually still uses the first computer catalog system he ever purchased, a DOS program called DataEase. It is limited to holding 9,999 customers and 9,999 catalog items. The old 1987 program isn’t fancy but it does the job, avoiding an arduous and costly upgrade. Fortunately, his website upgrade is already proving to be a huge improvement.
The Collection
Friends who share Glendower Jones’ interest in collecting music often share good leads on finding elusive pieces. Mary Ann Hart, now head of the vocal department at Indiana University, would frequently share good locations. When in NYC, he would rummage through The Strand and other used bookstores. In one old, dilapidated store down in Manhattan, he even found a first edition Manuel Garcia voice pedagogy treatise in German and French.
In addition to his own individual scavenged finds, Glendower has little pockets of other people’s collections, including soprano Victoria Villamil’s collection and acquisitions from Elisabeth Rethberg, which contain treasures like Hugo Wolf pieces, Joseph Marx songs, and even rarer octavo-sized parts for the orchestrations of the songs. Jones recently discovered hidden in his collection a letter from Darius Mihaud to an Englishman. Anna Le Tiec of Alphonse Leduc translated it for Jones, and he posted it on his Facebook page.
Jones acknowledges that replacing what has taken 25 years to collect would be impossible. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of this. I used to think my collection was really valuable, but I see listings on the MLA list servers saying, ‘We have this collection—does anybody want it?’ and no one has the room for these collections.” It’s too early to know if his precocious daughter, Mary Catherine, will take an interest. “I have nothing to leave her but this. I may have to sell it to a publishing company—but I’m not sure if they would want it. If this collection was catalogued, it may be valuable.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a priceless collection,” he continues, “but it’s only as valuable as what they would pay for it. I don’t think I could live without it. It’s so much a part of me.”
Next month, we’ll learn more about where the publishing industry is today, what Glendower Jones is trying to do for today’s composers, and how technology is affecting his business and the lives of his customers.
