Scope and arrangement
The Pimen Tyomkin Papers consist mainly of scores encompassing the period in which the composer was actively working in the Soviet Union, from 1939 to 1972. A worklist that probably was compiled for registration with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) after Tyomkin's move to the United States numbers over fifty original Tyomkin compositions and orchestrations; the present collection accounts for less than half of the material included on that list. The collection also contains bound copies of a screenplay adaptation of Alexsandr Beliaev's science fiction novel, Golova professor Douelia, written by Tyomkin and Victor Vasiliev, in both a Russian version and an English language translation. Supporting documentation, such as copies of forms completed for the registration of the manuscripts with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress and the Writer's Guild of America bound in with the screenplay volumes, as well as some additional loose materials, provide what little biographical information on Pimen Tyomkin that is available within the collection.
The Pimen Tyomkin papers are arranged in three series:
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undated
The Scores series is comprised of original manuscripts and photocopies of scores and parts for many of the pieces composed or arranged by Pimen Tyomkin. This material has been arranged alphabetically by the English title of each piece. The English versions of the titles are based on a literal translation of the original Russian, as given on the container that housed the item. For materials that could be confidently matched with the titles of pieces as given on a worklist included with the collection, preference was given to the English version of the title from the worklist (See Series II, Box 38, Folder 4 for the worklist). For these titles, the equivalent number on the English language worklist is given in brackets after the title of the piece.
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1979 - 1995
The Screenplays and other writings series contains photocopies of two versions of a screenplay adaptation of Alexsandr Beliaev’s science fiction novel, Golova professor Douelia, written by Tyomkin and Victor Vasiliev. It includes both a Russian language treatment and an English language translation. Also included in this series is a bound volume containing short biographical sketches of film and stage stars, written by Tyomkin. Some of these texts are in English and some are in Russian. The series also contains a small amount of biographical materials, including copies of testimonials by some of Tyomkin’s notable colleagues, such as Isaak Dunaevsky and Dimitri Shostakovich, on the merits of his 1949 violin concerto.
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1944 - 1988
The Oversized materials series consists chiefly of larger format scores, both manuscript and photocopies. It also includes an undated poster for a concert of Tyomkin’s works given in Moscow.