I was at Edinburgh University Library yesterday – I’m trying to work out which bound volumes might contain music that arrived through the legal deposit route. I was looking at one particular volume, and came to a batch of pieces all by the same Edinburgh-based composer. I looked him up – and found he spent some time in Italy in his youth, under the direction of a particular teacher.
Then I remembered that I’d encountered some music BY that teacher, in a different volume. And then – exploring the University Library catalogue – I found more by the Edinburgh composer AND more by the Italian musician. Is it remotely possible that the individual who arranged for that legal deposit volume to be bound, also knew the Edinburgh musician? It was some decades before music would have an official, recognised place in the University curriculum, but obviously some music was being collected.
Equally, might the music by the Italian – in another volume, not necessarily legal deposit, and in other volumes definitely not so – have come to Edinburgh in some way connected with his British pupil?
You might argue that this doesn’t have much to do with legal deposit. In one sense, that’s true. But if we’re thinking about what the University decided to keep, out of the legal deposit material that they received, then this is – if nothing else – quite interesting, surely?
As to the identity of these guys – well, let me enjoy the mystery a bit longer, once I’ve worked out if there’s any more to be discovered!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 