Gift of
Annette Kaufman

Louis Kaufman Collection

This collection documents the life of Louis Kaufman who, in a career that spanned nearly seven decades, made more than 125 major recordings from the classical repertoire and was heard as concert master in more than 500 movie soundtracks between 1934 and 1948 in films such as Gone with the Wind, Show Boat, Modern Times, Wuthering Heights, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Treasure of Sierra Maddre. Kaufman was a crossover musician and, unlike so many of his generation, he had no problem making the transition between classical performer and studio musician. Because of his affable personality and his impressive musical talent he was equally admired and accepted by musicians in the film industry and by those on the classical scene.

The collection mirrors Kaufman’s close association with many of the classical and film composers/musicians of his day. Among the most recorded violinists of this century, Kaufman was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He premiered a number of violin concerti including those by Bohuslav Martinu, Lars-Erik Larsson, Henri Sauguet, and Darius Milhaud’s Second Concerto and Concertino de Printemps. He has recorded the Copland Violin Sonata with the composer at the piano and was a champion of such contemporary composers as Robert Russell Bennett, Samuel Barber, Ernest Toch, William Grant Still and others.

The collection comprises music, both printed and manuscript, and a very valuable archive of correspondence that includes letters to Kaufman from many important musical and artistic figures of the 20th century icluding Milton Avery, Samuel Barber, Robert Russell Bennett, Leonard Bernstein, Mario Castelneovo-Tedesco, Aaron Copland, Jascha Heifetz, Bernard Herrmann, Fritz Kreisler, Francesco Malipiero, Bohuslav Martinu, Darius Milhaud, Dimitri Mitropolous, Walter Piston, Francis Poulenc, George Rochberg, Richard Rodgers, Miklos Rozsa, Henri Sauguet, William Grant Still, Ernst Toch and many others. The collection also includes photographs, programs, contracts, recordings, and some valuable artwork from Kaufman’s important collection of 20th century American and traditional Khmer art.