Robert P. Taylor's Musicians: Reflections of Music Making

Exhibits by Musical Role

These exhibits group the drawings according to the primary musical roles played by the subjects. Those who regularly play several roles appear in every exhibit in which a drawing suitably portrays them, but they also appear in Multi-role Musicians, too. All that not withstanding, many of the drawings depict musicians waiting - something they spend a great deal of time doing whatever their role. The set of exhibit categories above is somewhat arbitrary in the sense that several might each be broken in to several smaller exhibits. For example, brass might be subdivided into trumpet, french horn, and so on, strings at least into violin, viola, cello, and bass, and singers into at least soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Further fractioning of the exhibits seemed to raise additional problems of arrangement without improving viewability much. For example, with whom should a Baroque oboist or a boy soprano be exhibited?