Skvir–Buketoff Music Collection

Collection date(s): 1819-1950
Extent and forms of material: 3 boxes; musical scores. 
Language of material: Russian and English

Scope and content: The Skvir–Buketoff Music Collection was donated by The Very Rev. Daniel (SVOTS '69) and Tamara Turkevich Skvir, rector and choir director of the Holy Transfiguration Chapel in Princeton, NJ. The collection consists of four boxes of Eastern Orthodox liturgical music published from the year 1819 through 1950, and includes several unique and rare scores.The bulk of the collection belonged to The Very Rev. Constantine Buketoff, who came to the United States in the first decade of the 20th century as a church musician, and served as a rector of several parishes in the vicinity of New York City. It includes hundreds of pre–Revolutionary individual sheet music scores as well as anthologies. Dozens of Russian composers are represented; prominent among them—prolific composer, conductor, and teacher Pavel Chesnokoff. The Buketoff portion of the collection was later passed on to Fr Constantine's son, Igor Buketoff, a renowned symphony conductor and composer known for his unique rendition of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture that incorporates a choral component, and for his orchestration of Rachmaninoff's unfinished opera, Mona Vanna. Subsequently, Fr Daniel and Tamara Skvir (Fr Constantine's granddaughter) inherited the collection and supplemented it with the music collection of The Very Rev. John Skvir, who served as the rector of Ss. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church in Jersey City for 35 years and reposed in 1987. The entire collection was then donated to the Father Georges Florovsky Library by the combined families.

Subject headings:

  • Choruses--Sacred--Mixed voices-Unaccompanied
  • Church Music--Eastern Orthodox Church
  • Composers--Russian
  • Liturgies--Music
  • Sacred Vocal Music--Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov

System of arrangement: Alphabetical by composer's surname. Vocal parts are abbreviated (S=Soprano, A=Alto, T=Tenor, B=Bass). This collection was organized and cataloged by Fr Daniel and Matushka Tamara Skvir.