From an era a century later than our project’s focus, we encounter legal deposit again – at Cambridge University Library. The practical impact of the Second World War? A disruption in the supply of legal deposit music!
This week, I have been busy laying out a small exhibition in the Anderson Room to commemorate the start of the Second World War.
I had a very clear idea in my head of what I was going to do – an exhibition based around some wartime favourites: There’ll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover, Lilli Marlene, Moonlight Serenade, Bella Ciao, and the famous timpani version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – Morse code for Churchill’s Victory V, the sound of the BBC broadcasting to Europe throughout the war years.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, and reflecting wartime conditions, the exhibition ended up being rather different to my original intentions. It is though, I believe, perhaps a truer reflection of the times.
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Karen McAulay, Musicologist 