Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
An English publication caught my attention. I had to acquire it.
The paratext was pretty standard for the time …
But the adverts were the best bit! Piano, or accordion – take your pick! The idea that you could ‘earn while learning’ amused me mightily. Would your audience appreciate having to pay you for your fumbling efforts?!
But at the end, a lovely colour advert for soap, bath cubes and talc. De luxe products, for sure:-
Since I’m currently working on a book about Scottish music publishers, I suppose it was inevitable that I’d ask myself just one question last night:-
Well, you’d have thought they might, wouldn’t you? There were militaristic books of marches and national songs in war-time, so why not patriotic books of national favourites when a new monarch acceded to the throne?
A couple of klaxon warnings should be sounded straight away.
But the fact remains that music celebrating the coronation of a British monarch appears not to have been of interest to Kerr and Mozart Allan, the two popular music publishers holding sway in Glasgow for the first part of the twentieth century.
I found just one Scottish publication, the Glasgow and Galloway Diocesan Choral Association’s Book of the Music to be used at the sixth festival service in St. Mary’s Church, Glasgow on Saturday, June 28, 1902 (in connection with the coronation of His Majesty King Edward VII) etc. And that was it!
The English firm Bosworth, on the other hand, published Alexander Campbell Mackenzie’s Coronation March, op.63, in various formats: for piano, a full score, and arranged for piano duet by J B McEwen. Mackenzie (1847-1935) was Edinburgh born, but became Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in 1887. McEwen (1868-1948), another Scot, was professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy, and in time became their next Principal. Mackenzie’s Coronation March was dedicated to the King, and first performed at Crystal Palace with anything up to nine military bands. A march was an accessible genre, but the composer was very much part of the English musical establishment.
So, not much to see in 1902, then. But wait!
Bayley and Ferguson had offices in Glasgow and London – and had done for some years. On the occasion of George V and Mary’s Coronation, they published Carlo F. Roberti’s The Crowning of our King & Queen; or, The Coronation Song of – Semper fidelis. I know nothing about Roberti, but someone at the Dundee Courier wrote in 1990 that his real name was Charlie Robertson, of Perthshire. (If you have access to the British Newspaper Archive, you can read how the readers responded to this snippet, on 8 February 1990. Robertson was a violin teacher. His song was taught to local schoolchildren at the time.)
The Scottish firm Paterson’s had offices in both Scotland and London, too. They published a Coronation song by a Durham man, Thomas Richardson, who had moved to Edinburgh to become organist at St Peter’s Episcopal Church in 1879, and singing-master at George Watson’s College in 1883. His song, ‘Mary’ had an alternative title, ‘Queen Mary. Coronation Song’, with words by K. Kelly, and was for some two decades popular as what people imagined to be a Scottish song. Which raises the interesting debate as to what makes a song ‘Scottish’!
Meanwhile in London, light music publisher Metzler published a book of tunes around this time, which included at least one piece composed for Edward’s Coronation: Metzler’s Coronation Dance Album. The precise date is uncertain: Metzler gives 1911 in Roman numerals, and (1909) in Arabic. Very helpful, Mr Metzler!
Paterson’s was essentially a London firm by this time. J Michael Diack, one of the directors, had moved down south some years earlier. And that means that the only Coronation theme publications that I traced were either published in England, or overseas. Perhaps it was the advent of radio broadcasting that made people more enthusiastic about such things, but the outpouring of Coronation-related music was suddenly – well, remarkable! Many people got a wireless in time to listen to the Coronation – the first time such an event could be broadcast.
Which brings me to an advertisement in the Coatbridge Leader on Saturday 27 May 1937. F. Mills & Co sold pianos, organs and radios from his two shops in Coatbridge, a town about a quarter of the way between Glasgow and Edinburgh. (He also had a shop in Motherwell at some point – I haven’t checked dates.) If you bought a piano or organ before the Coronation, he would give you a free stool. If you bought a radio – to listen to the broadcast – then there was a discounted price.
Mr Mills didn’t mention sheet-music, but you’d be surprised how many English music publishers rushed to publish relatively lightweight music for popular consumption, whilst Paterson’s also offered a choral arrangement of a Handel anthem by one of Diack’s favourite composers:-
Slightly to my surprise – though it was obvious, when I thought about it, with emigration still high – I found publications from Australia, Canada and America too:-
There was a rush to get television sets for Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation, although comparatively few people in Scotland would have had them this early on. Francis, Day and Hunter published a new dance introduced on television for the Coronation.
However, despite now being basically an English firm, Paterson’s turned to their Scottish roots for their Coronation offerings, which had nothing to do with the television broadcast at all. Indeed, country dancing was very popular across Britain:-
Many other publishers produced music in their own preferred genres, but I didn’t see anything from Kerr’s, Mozart Allan or Bayley & Ferguson.
Last night, I was just idly searching to see if ‘my’ Scottish music publishers showed much interest in Coronation-themed publishing. On the face of it, those with an English office did make a token effort. Those based solely in Glasgow may not have done, with the caveat that they might have produced ephemeral material no longer traceable, and there could have been songs that my quick search didn’t reveal.
But I know a lot more about light music publishing in England around those times!
IMAGES: All from eBay!
I am just back from a fabulous library history conference at the University of Stirling. Even better still, I was the lucky recipient of a generous bursary from the CILIP Library History & Information Group, meaning my attendance was fully funded.
I had many pages of notes to read through and reflect upon before I wrote my report – so many excellent papers to think about. My AHRC networking grant not so long ago was about music in libraries ca.1790-1836, and although I’m currently writing about more recent music publications, it was very interesting to see what else was happening whilst “my” legal deposit library music was being accumulated in libraries in England, Ireland and Scotland.
And of course, there was the networking. After the pandemic, lockdown, working from home, hybrid working and so on, it was quite a treat to be able to spend time with kindred spirits for two whole days!
My report will appear in the LIHG Newsletter in June 2023 – it’ll appear online on the LIHG pages hosted by CILIP. This might mean that only members can read it, but maybe I can write a summary of it to share here, once the whole report has gone live.
You can tell when I’m using avoidance tactics on a writing day! But the pictures I’m about to share with you come from an old instrumental Scottish song medley, and it was in the pile of papers that simply had to be sorted out. It’s a library copy, so I can’t actually keep it – I thought I’d take a few snaps just to remind myself what it’s like.
It comes from a series of 48 medleys published by arranger Carl Volti for the London firm, Ascherberg, Hopwood and Crew. This is a series ‘arranged expressly for AMATEURS‘. Oh, what almost limitless fun the great-great aunties and uncles would’ve had, considering each contained at least four different ‘Scotch Airs’! Volti had other arrangements published by Scottish music publishers – but he clearly wasn’t prepared to limit himself to Scotland!
Historically-informed performance practice is very much a buzz-word in music conservatoire circles. The more closely I looked at this piece of music, the more little hints I gleaned about the expectations around its performance.
It goes against my principles to pay for private medical treatment, but when I developed a trigger thumb late last November, it didn’t take long to work out that if I didn’t do something about it, I’d be looking at sick-leave from organ-playing, and a car immobile out in the street. The NHS waiting list was long – it didn’t look promising. Within a couple of months, it was taking more than two hours before I could bend my thumb in the morning, and if I accidentally had a nap in front of the telly at night, my thumb was locked solid until the next morning. I was lucky enough to find private surgery which I could afford, locally, and the operation was early in February.
Today, I played Widor’s Toccata for the Easter Sunday service at the church where I’m organist. Needless to say, I’m very grateful to the surgeon who fixed my thumb, and even more grateful that it was probably one of the cheapest surgeries that he performs. (As I sat in the waiting-room, my eyes widened at the video showing procedures that were available – and their cost. Yikes! I was astonished at what some folk choose to do to themselves in the name of beauty.)
I still think it’s wrong that I was forced to go private. The under-funding of the NHS has had far worse impact on so many people, but this was my first experience of not being able to get the treatment I needed, when I needed it. But hey, I’m very grateful for the private surgeon’s skill, and there’s also a church that was spared my prolonged absence. They’ll be grateful too!
Exciting news. Thanks to CILIP’s Library and Information History Group, I shall be attending a fascinating conference in Stirling soon!
The conference is 17-18 April in Stirling, and the programme for ‘Reading and Book Circulation, 1650-1850’ is on their Events page:- borrowing.stir.ac.uk/events/
It’s of special interest to me because of my work on music borrowing at the University of St Andrews in the days of the old Copyright Libraries: I examined the borrowing habits of two particular women, Miss Elizabeth Lambert and Mrs Bertram, and contemplated the changing readership over the three and a half decades under examination. This work led into my successful application as Principal Investigator of an AHRC postdoctoral research network, the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall network (2017-2018) investigating music surviving from legal deposit in the old copyright libraries.
Here’s the big news I’ve been bursting to share! During Autumn 2023, I’m to be the first holder of the honorary Ketelbey research Fellowship in Late Modern History, in the University of St Andrews’ School of History. I’ll be there on Wednesdays and Thursdays for one semester, continuing to research and think about Scottish music publishers and other related topics, and enjoying the experience of being a research fellow in a very highly-rated university history department. St Andrews was rated the top UK university in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide last September, and the School of History came top in both the Times and Sunday Times rating, and the Guardian University Guide 2023 – so I’m dead chuffed! I’m an academic librarian and musicologist – I guess this means I can call myself halfway to being a historian, too.
The Fellowship is named after Doris Ketelbey (1896-1990), who was the first female academic in the School of History; a respected author; and had a phenomenal career for a woman of her times. Aileen Fyfe has written a blog post about her, which you can read here:-
Interestingly, Ketelbey taught at St Leonard’s School at one point. A few years ago, I wrote a blogpost for the EAERN Network about about the very first owner of a private school in the same premises, in the early 19th century: Mrs Bertram’s Music Borrowing. But the St Leonard’s that Ketelbey taught at would have been a more sophisticated institution than Mrs Bertram’s doubtlessly estimable establishment!
– and yes, she was the sister of composer Albert Ketelbey, who wrote an enormous quantity of lighter music and songs. I bet he was proud of his determined, high-achieving sister!
I’m honoured to be part of the Editorial Board on the re-launching ‘Review of Scottish Culture’. Exciting times!
I’ll share the link to the revamped website as soon as I can.
The Review of Scottish Culture emanates from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures – Celtic & Scottish Studies department.
In the 1900s, touring Scottish singer/entertainers turned up all over the world with their songs and anecdotes, and often wore the kilt. Men AND women, that is.
Overseas, this spelled ‘Scottish Highlands’, even if the singer was actually a Lowlander.
At home, opinions on women wearing short kilts were less polite. Like this:-
“Man, she’s a bit bonnie lassie, and has a gude pipe [= good voice]; but to see her puir porritch-sticks o’ legs keekin’ out below the kilt …’ [= her poor porridge-stirrer sticks of legs peeping out below the kilt] And here a spontaneous and hilarious burst of laughter completed the sentence.
Southern Reporter newspaper, 1911
Aye, right!
This is not a spoiler alert! I haven’t finished yet; I’m just about at the end of Chapter 5, with two further chapters to go. I’m not about to reveal how it ends, either, because (a) I don’t want to spoil it for you and (b) what if the closing chapters end up in a different overall order?
I’m thinking about structure, really. When you’re writing about a subject that had a rise, a heyday and a decline, it’s going to be hard to end on a high. I’ve been pondering about which order to place the last three chapters in the book, and it came down to this:-
My instinctive feeling is that the Rise-Fall curve of the second option is going to be more satisfying for the reader. Indeed, as I was writing this post, I stumbled across a website about ‘story arcs’, with six different arc shapes being outlined. Admittedly, we’re only talking about my last three chapters, and I’m writing non-fiction, not a story with a plot. (In a previous existence, I wrote and published over thirty short stories, so I do have an interest in the genre, in a retrospective kind of way. But that’s irrelevant today.) Nonetheless, if we’re thinking about arcs, then …
My first option isn’t even described, so it can’t be a recommended option! Let’s call it the Tennis Ball Bounce. On the other hand, my second option is a classic ‘Icarus / Freytag’s Pyramid (rise then fall)’ arc.
https://thewritepractice.com/story-arcs/ (Joe Bunting, ‘Story Arcs: Definitions and Examples of the 6 Shapes of Stories’
I think I’ve convinced myself. Option 2 it is! Watch this space.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 