‘Seated One Day at the Organ’: Athenaeum Principals’ Music Revived

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Gaily through the World - piano music by Allan Macbeth, with a picture of a woman dancing, on the front cover

The first and second Principals of the Glasgow Athenaeum School of Music weren’t actually in post very long. Allan Macbeth managed twelve years (1890-1902); then Edward Emanuel Harper, only two (1902-04). I’ve been researching them recently, and I do believe I’ve found out quite a bit more than has hitherto been known. But this post is not about their biographies and achievements – that’s for another time.

No, today is about practical music-making. Amongst a handful of compositions, Macbeth wrote a march and two-step, Gaily Through the World, which is actually very jaunty, and enjoyed quite a long life as a piece of band music. It’s not high art, but it does stand up as an effective piece of light music. It was published in 1908, two years before he died, by Hawkes. (Yes, the Hawkes that later went into partnership with Boosey in 1930.) That in itself is a mark of its respectability, if nothing else. The author of this YouTube posting says it was premiered at a Boosey Promenade Concert in 1896 – when Macbeth was in the middle of his Principalship.

Harper seems to have had a larger output. Again, it was respectable but not remarkable. Nonetheless, I found a piece of organ music on IMSLP, this time published by Vincent Music in 1903, halfway through his own spell at the Athenaeum. (Vincent Music was the firm who would later publish James Woods and Learmont Drysdale’s Song Gems (Scots), which I’ve written about before. They were not as eminent as Boosey or Hawkes.) Abendlied is gentle and reflective, and appeared in an extensive series of ‘Organ Solos Suitable for Recitals’. It’s not hugely memorable, but it’s a nice enough piece for all that. Whilst Macbeth and Harper were both organists, each at several churches, I’ve formed the impression that being an organist occupied perhaps more of Harper’s career than it did of Macbeth’s, but this is really only a guess; moreover, Harper lived much longer than Macbeth and was only Principal of the Athenaeum for a couple of years. He obviously occupied himself in other ways for the rest of his career, and I have quite a list of the churches where he ‘presided’ at the organ.

Anyway, I digress. I played Abendlied before morning worship this morning. (No-one knew it was an ‘Abend Lied’, after all!) It could well have been played by Harper, just a couple of miles up the road, when he was organist at Kilbarchan.

But I saved Macbeth’s Gaily Through the World for my outgoing voluntary – and it did get noticed! It fitted the organ so well that I wondered if he had ever tried it at the organ himself – though maybe he might not have considered it serious enough for late Victorian Presbyterians …

‘February Article of the Month’ – Delighted!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Pink Scottish heather plants

What do you know? I’m delighted to discover that my article is February Article of the Month in vol.56 of the RMA Research Chronicle!

Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles

Reader, I Killed It

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I thought I’d make bread for lunch. (It’s a semi-retirement day.)  The idea occurred to me too late, so I decided to try the bread-machine’s fast-bake setting.  I measured my ingredients carefully, but evidently not carefully enough.  It came out underdone: solid, squishy, and pale. Pasty – as in complexion, not the Cornish kind.

I could fix this. Into the oven it went, and then I sat down to reply to Checkatrade.  My dealings with them have been wholly positive. (More than can be said about one of their traders, but let’s not go there.) I composed one of my best replies, because I do appreciate the care they’ve taken with my complaint.

My nose alerted me to a problem. I had forgotten about the underdone loaf.  ‘Well-fired’ is a thing in Scottish bread products, admittedly.  But I’m no’ Scottish, and I can tell a burnt loaf when I smell it.

Ah, well. I sent my email, and the dead bread proved surprisingly edible. I won’t be using ‘fast-bake’ again.  (Neither will I  bake it myself from scratch – I’ll just use the regular setting!)

Cloth Book about Historical Legal Deposit Music

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I made this cloth book after I’d finished the ‘Claimed from Stationers Hall’ research project. Something was missing, though: it lacked explanatory captions. This week, I revised it and corrected my omission!

YouTube video short

Click here to visit a blog post that I wrote for St Andrews University Library, in 2016.

Admit Defeat? Not if I can Help it!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

A Woman with Opinions, and a Man who Resigned more than Once

Whilst waiting to get started with my next project, I’ve been doing a bit more research into individuals who only had a marginal role in my previous projects, but looked interesting in their own right, too.

But if I have one quality which is sometimes a failing, it’s my refusal to accept that sometimes the information is simply not there to be found.  My librarianship background is somewhat to blame. If I can’t find something, it feels tantamount to an admission of defeat. And I don’t like being beaten.

Like Believing in Fairies

I’ve been on a wild goose chase this afternoon, though.  I knew the poetry collections I was seeking were rare. It was totally improbable that I would walk into a couple of secondhand bookshops and find either of them. Yes, they were published in Scotland  – 150 years ago.   The poet (‘poetess’ or ‘authoress’ in her own day) comes across as an interesting woman with informed opinions about women’s status, and since she was the mother of one of ‘my’ woman composers, I thought she merited more attention.  However, there was no trace of her this afternoon.  Luckily, I have tracked down library copies, so all is not lost. I will get to see them – I just won’t have my own copies!

Even the consolatory coffee was a bit of a damp squib.  I had the choice of standing and waiting in a haphazard queue, or going elsewhere to squeeze into a seat between people who really needed the space my seat was occupying. Oh, well. I had an outing.  And I  managed not to spill my coffee when I got bumped by the customers on either side!

However, I’ve had more luck at home, with my other quest. 

‘Beyond a few slender facts [ … ], virtually no information about him seems to have survived.’

So said the authors of a book celebrating the 150th anniversary of our institution,  a few years ago.

Of course, we have more information at our fingertips these days, so I’ve been trying to build up more of a profile of the Athenaeum Principal who only stayed in post for two years.  I now know a lot more about him – though not yet the reason for his resignation.  He was well qualified, a good pianist, and was the organist for several churches in England, Scotland and overseas.

Resigned as Principal, Resigned as Organist …

His resignation from the Athenaeum wasn’t the only time he resigned from a post. Indeed, one church went into a little more detail, saying he lacked tact. Their choir had already reportedly a hard time with his predecessor, though – maybe the choir itself was tricky!

I haven’t ruled out discovering more. But I am rather gratified by what I have found so far!

PromPrint: University of Sussex Research Project

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

On Wednesday, I was more than happy to attend as an advisory board member for the first board meeting of the University of Sussex’s PromiscuousPrint research project. The website explains what it’s all about:-

A research project about what UK copyright libraries left out in the nineteenth century. Funded by the European Research Council. Hosted by the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab.
Led by Dr Hannah Field.

Dr Field is the principal investigator of PromPrint; she is an associate professor in Victorian literature at the University of Sussex. She’s joined by doctoral researcher, Tiffany Murphy, also at the University of Sussex, and two Digital Humanities scholars, Dr Nicolas Seymour-Smith and Dr Milan Terlunen (also at Sussex).

It’s rather nice to have the opportunity to think about copyright libraries again. My own Claimed from Stationers Hall network feels quite a while ago now! (Remember?)

A stitched aide-memoire. Of which more anon!

Good News! Article now Published in RMA Research Chronicle, and an [unrelated] Book Chapter Pending

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Silver Victorian pen and ink stand

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that my RMA Research Chronicle article was now available online as open access. Today, it’s actually in the published issue. Receiving this email is a great start to the day:-

“your article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles’, has now been published in Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle! You can view your article at https://doi.org/10.1017/rrc.2025.10009 “

Citation Details

Writing about Tourism

What’s this?, I hear you ask. Why would a musicologist write about tourism? Well, it’s like this: one of the song book titles that I explored in last year’s monograph, The Glories of Scotland, really deserved more space than I could give it in a monograph devoted to a nation’s music publishing. However, the opportunity came up to contribute a chapter to a Peter Lang Publication, Print and Tourism: Travel-Related Publications from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, edited by Catherine Armstrong and Elaine Jackson.

Today, I received the final proofs, which means that the book itself can’t be very far away. I really enjoyed writing this chapter – you could say that it’s decidedly more about publishing history, and tourism, than conventional musicology – and I really look forward to it actually being published.

My chapter (19 pages):-

‘The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song’: Jumping on the Festival of Britain Bandwagon?’

The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song - a song book published by Mozart Allan of Glasgow. The cover shows various Scottish tartans.
The Glories of Scotland – Mozart Allan’s souvenir songbook
Back cover of The Glories of Scotland song book
Back cover of The Glories of Scotland

How to Make Life Difficult for Yourself

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m not writing about scholarship today. Indeed, this is more a case of, ‘Don’t do as I do …’

  • Buy old house
  • After 30 years, learn that rewiring is needed
  • Box most household goods (this is mainly my remit) to facilitate rewiring
  • Pull a muscle in your back (ouch!)
  • Vacate premises
  • Return to scenes like this:-

Upheaval is Anathema

Now, having very elderly and neuro-divergent family members will make any upheaval twice as traumatic. It was. Keep this in mind.

  • Despite the need for redecorating next, I was told that We could not live like that, so the majority of the boxes had to be unboxed (again, my remit)  before Christmas. A painter was engaged to start after Christmas.
  • But first, I had to coordinate Christmas and pack it away again,  singlehandedly.  The pulled muscle complained.
  • And boxing up began again. (Again mainly, painfully, my remit). 
  • But this time, more of my books had to be boxed. Even for a former librarian, heaving big boxes of books about is strenuous work.
  • There were delays. And timekeeping issues. The estimated 4-5 days (this is disputed; apparently they estimated 5-6) extended to 18 immensely stressful days. Testosterone Towers took it out on me.  I’m mentally exhausted, and now the house has to be unboxed and tidied again.
  • OK, so now is a good time to go for a shingles vaccination. Only a mild reaction, but temporarily adding physical aches and tiredness to the mental draining. 

Between 4 and 10 pm yesterday, I emptied 12 boxes and cooked dinner.  Testosterone Towers can’t wait for order to be restored out of chaos.  It will happen. (I may be ‘ridiculous’, ‘getting worse as I age’ and ‘a stupid old woman’, but I have my uses.  Apparently, none of this was said.*  I must be losing my marbles, too.)

In Fairness

  • Three rooms completely redecorated
  • Two rooms, hall and landings repaired

Although we had expected a couple of ceilings to be fully repainted, which weren’t, I have to say that the painter’s partial solution was masterful. The highlight of my morning today? Waking to this:-

Never was I happier to look up at a white ceiling. (Even if other parts of it are less pristine!)

I cannot think about research just yet.  I don’t need to, today or most of tomorrow. My mind is still frazzled, and there’s major tidying to do.  But hopefully a nicer environment will make for a calmer mind.

(Now, where’s the hot water bottle for my back?)

Writing a Review

We academics are good at writing reviews. I wrote a fair, but honest review of the work done. The ongoing outcome is a bit of a nightmare, and I’m still living it. Shall we just say, it was not well-received. Some things are best left off social media, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

*This is gaslighting. These things have been said.

Burns Night? Morning Too

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I didn’t take organ music with me today. The church got ‘Green grow the rashes, O’ (I’d transcribed that from a recording); and the rest from memory:- ‘Afton Water’; ‘My luve is like a red, red rose’; ‘When you and I were young’; ‘Ae fond kiss’; and ‘Comin’ thro’ the rye’.

Well, it’s Burns Night!