The Jascha Heifetz Collection, in the breadth and variety of its contents, gives a rare and comprehensive look at the life of one of history's most important violinists. Heifetz's personal music library includes his original compositions, arrangements and transcriptions (some of which are unpublished), his annotated parts and scores, holographs and manuscripts of many of his contemporaries, and hundreds of printed scores (at least some of which appear to have been previously owned by Joseph Achron). Concert programs document his performances from 1911 to 1974, and photographs, photo albums, and scrapbooks, encompassing the violinist's entire life, capture Heifetz in performance, with his family, and with notable personalities. And the correspondence, constituting a small part of the collection, contains letters from such important musical figures of the twentieth-century as Leopold Auer, Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev, George Bernard Shaw, and Sir William Walton.

The Music has been further divided into four subseries:

In using the guide to the Music, the following distinctions should be observed. Bracketed titles are uniform titles, assigned in accordance with Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, second edition. Non-bracketed titles are shown as they appear on the music itself. Numbers in parentheses refer to the number of copies. Where no contrary information is give, music may be assumed to be printed. All of Heifetz's compositions, with the exception of the cadenzas and Theme and Variations, were published under the pseudonym of Jim Hoyl.

The rest of the materials in the collection are divided into five series:

There are approximately 2,000 items in the Programs subseries. The majority of these are concert and recital programs dating from Heifetz's 1917 Carnegie Hall debut to his last concerts in 1974. The remainder consists of programs of Heifetz's radio appearances (and often the scripts for these shows), program files, and a program notebook. The program files, arranged alphabetically by performance location (city or country), although headings also exist under "Radio" and "Repertoire," contain typescript concert and recital programs as well as typescript and manuscript repertoire lists. The program notebook lists programs of receitals given by Heifetz in the United States and Canada between 1930 and 1956; these programs are arranged alphabetically by city. The researcher using the Programs subseries should further note that encores are often listed in the program files and in the program notebook, and that duplicate and additional Heifetz programs can be found in the scrapbooks in the Jascha Heifetz Collection and in the general collections of the Music Division.

The items in the Correspondence subseries are arranged alphabetically by correspondent. Except where noted, letters are to Heifetz. A few letters are kept with musical scores, but are cross-referenced in the Correspondence subseries.

The scrapbooks and photograph albums have been left intact. Size, rather than date order, was used as the organizing principal for these items, as many of them contain unusually large date spans that frequently overlap. Although an attempt has been made to provide date ranges under the titles (where they occur) of the scrapbooks, these are not to be considered definitive because so much material is either undated or in foreign languages.

Books from Mr. Heifetz's library have been treated in several different ways. The books of particular significance, due to inscriptions, annotations, etc., have been kept with the collection and are listed under Appendix I. Books that became part of the general collection of the Library of Congress are listed in Appendix II. Books that were returned to the Jascha Heifetz Estate are listed in Appendix III.

The sound recording transferred to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound division are listed here in Appendix IV.

Mark Katz and Mark Horowitz, January 1998