Four years ago, I gave a conference paper with this title. Time passed before I found it a home as a published article, but I’m pleased to say that it is now published in Brio, Vol.63 no.1, pp.13-30.
Brio is the professional journal of IAML(UK & Irl), the British and Irish branch of the International Association of Music Libraries. It’s a fitting home for an article about a Scottish song collection of a rather distinctive nature.
- https://iaml-uk-irl.org/resources/brio-contents-list/ (link only works for IAML(UK&Irl) members)
I’ve added the article details to my RCS Pure page, and I’ll also list it here on my Publications page and on ResearchGate. If you’d like to read it but can’t access it, do drop me a line via my ‘Join the Conversation’ page on this blog.
Abstract
‘The introduction to the musical world of yet another collection of Scots songs may possibly in certain quarters seem to demand something in the nature of an apology’, said editor James Wood in his 1908 preface. Wood’s collection is intriguing. The clumsily-worded title on the cover incorporates an embossed lozenge/roundel of Edinburgh’s Dunedin cross. Although Wood compiled the collection, he collaborated with a musical editor, Learmont Drysdale, and another eleven Scottish musicians are acknowledged. His own identity is a bit of a mystery. The book’s scarcity is also noteworthy; it was possibly a short print-run. Well-intentioned, it perhaps lacked general appeal, and paratextual clues bear out the assertion that this highbrow, specialist publication may not have sold very well.
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