Discovered music collection of Friedrich Wilhelm Jüncke (1842–1897) as the beginning of research into the reconstruction of the old musical inventory

Abstract

This article attempts to determine the function of the discovered small collection of 19 pieces of music, owned by Friedrich Wilhelm Jüncke (1842–1897) stored in the Library of the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk. In the face of limited knowledge about the life of this merchant from Gdańsk, and then from Sopot, the discovery that, apart from numismatic items and so-called Gdansk door, he also collected musical items was a big surprise for the employees of the Art Inkubator, an institution that, since 2019, has been taking care of, e.g. Jüncke’s villa and cherishes the memory of the former owner of the building. The musical and bibliological characteristics of the music prints showed that Jüncke gathered them for collecting rather than for utilitarian purposes. The provenance entries found in two prints prove that Jüncke was not their first owner. In addition, the entries found in the next five prints may prove that after Jüncke’s death some items were in the possession of the Gdańsk NSDAP, and after the war they ended up in the aMuz Library. Undoubtedly, finding this small book collection contributes to supplementing the information about Jüncke and – indirectly – to expanding knowledge about the musical culture of Gdańsk in the period 1939–1945.