A Retrospective, Prompted by the Anniversary of a Letter being Sent

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
William Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time (modern reprint by Elibron)

170 years ago today,  antiquarian ballad and song collector William Chappell sent an unintentionally incendiary letter to Andrew Wighton!

It is difficult to find really good tunes of this early date, because there is so little genuine Scotch music in print – although plenty of Anglo-Scottish.

Sparks flew in Dundee.  How dare Mr Chappell suggest that much of Scotland’s song repertoire wasn’t really Scottish, but some kind of English-worked mishmash? Sparks also flew in Aberdeen, when Chappell’s song-collection was published, on account of his extensive annotations.

This is actually part of a larger story, which I explored in the final chapter of my first book, Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era. Chapter 8 is headed,

‘The Feelings of a Scotsman’ and the Illusion of Origins in the Later Nineteenth Century‘.

CAST LIST:-

  • William Chappell, English antiquarian and song collector; author of Popular Music of the Olden Times;
  • Andrew Wighton, Scottish shopkeeper and song-collector in Dundee (his amazing collection was bequeathed to the city, and The Wighton Collection is now in the Central Library);
  • James Davie, crusty old Aberdonian musician and song-collector, fiercely patriotic and with a strong dislike of Chappell and all that he stood for;
  • David Laing, Edinburgh librarian, authority on Scottish literature and songs, and altogether good chap, generous in sharing his knowledge.

If you’re interested in learning more, my book is available in quite a few libraries or in paperback, e-book or Kindle format. Chappell’s collection is also readily available.

It’s Getting Closer! The Next Article

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Anyone looking at my publication record is soon going to be mightily confused. The article about Sir John Macgregor Murray concerns a Highlander who lived from 1745-1822. I wrote it at a time when I was still researching Scottish music collecting and publishing in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries.

Today, I received the final proofs for the next extensive article. This time, it’s about Scotswomen with portfolio music careers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. (Two of them were of English parentage, but let’s not quibble!) A spin-off from my latest book, in the sense that I turned my focus onto a number of individuals who had hung around in the shadows of the book, this article extends over some 22 pages, and luckily there wasn’t a great deal needing changing in the proofs.  But the instructions for using the proofing system extended over 49 pages, and there was also a ten-step quick tour of the process. I nearly had a fit at the sight of the former, but the latter told me nearly all I needed to know. Job done.

There are still more articles in the pipeline; I’ll flag them up as they come along! Meanwhile, there’s the small matter of Christmas requiring my attention during the semi-retired part of my existence, not to mention the continued tidying up of our poor scarred, rewired residence! But first, I need stamps …

Image: Glasgow Athenaeum, forerunner of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (Wikimedia Commons) – where two of ‘my’ musical ladies received their advanced musical training.

New Article about Sir John Macgregor Murray, in the Folk Music Journal

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Finally, an article from me after a long spell of apparent silence. ‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’. Folk Music Journal vol. 13 no.1, pp.50-63. 

The article started out as a conference paper, but I felt it deserved a wider audience. Let me share the abstract:-

Abstract

Sir John MacGregor Murray is known by Scottish music historians as the man who retrieved Joseph Macdonald’s Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe. This act of transmitting a work about Highland culture was just one instance of the Highland chieftain’s involvement in facilitating the artistic output of his native country. A founder member of the Highland Society of Scotland, he traversed the Highlands in pursuit of James Macpherson’s Ossian poetry, assisted song collector Alexander Campbell in planning his own itinerary in the Highlands and Western Isles, and helped establish a piping competition in Edinburgh. Sir John was one of a number of individuals who played a mediatory role in the collecting and publication of Scottish music.
This article outlines Sir John’s role in the codifying and promotion of Highland culture, embracing literary as much as musical endeavours. It also introduces some of the other individuals who played a similar role in Scotland during the Georgian and Victorian eras.

EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song Society) website

Folk Music Journal

Lanrick Castle Gatehouse (Wikipedia)

A Quiet Contribution to Women’s History: Miss Elizabeth Lambert

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Seashells of various sizes

At Tuesday’s Women who Dared book launch, mention was made of the Wikipedia ‘Women in Red’ project, to which I once attempted to contribute.  It’s a valuable project; there’s no denying far too few women are represented in Wikipedia.

I  got nowhere with my own attempt, as I was the only person who had researched and written about ‘my’ Elizabeth Lambert (married name Williams), so I couldn’t provide the requisite references by respectable authors. She wasn’t ‘daring’, but she definitely made a worthwhile contribution to St Andrews University Library, in cataloguing their legal deposit music so borrowers knew what was available to borrow.  (Her other private interests were interesting, too. She was an acknowledged expert in conchology.) I’m pleased to see she at least has a Wikidata entry now! Anyway, thwarted in my Wikipedia ambitions, I posted a biography on the present blog.

You might also find my article about St Andrews’ Copyright Collection of interest. Again, Miss Lambert gets several honorable mentions. And I found another posting that I’d forgotten all about, this time in 2021 for a University of Stirling research project. I might as well share details of these pieces, to get her a bit more exposure!

Addenda to ‘Our Heroine is Dead: Margaret Wallace Thomson …’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Choral music - A Weary Day, by Margaret (Maggie) Wallace Thomson

I wrote an article for a Scottish organists’ newsletter, a couple of years ago. To ensure the article would continue to be accessible even if the newsletter was not, I also posted it on this blog.

I was thrilled to receive a query about Margaret (aka Maggie) Thomson over the weekend, so I updated the article gently with a couple of scans and a little bit more detail.

Maggie was clearly a modest soul – or, maybe, a typical Victorian woman, eschewing the limelight – even when she was made a presentation, her brother made the acceptance speech. At any rate, I’m not at all surprised that so little survives of her work. It sounds as though she was an amazing, and much loved accompanist, but the two pieces in The National Choir really aren’t remarkable in any way. Parlane was a local, Paisley book publisher with a considerable output, but having a contribution published in The National Choir would not have as much kudos as a composition published by Boosey or even by one of Scotland’s bigger music publishers. (There’s quite a bit more about Parlane and The National Choir in my book, if you’re interested.)

Another piece, referenced in a newspaper review, probably wasn’t even published.

And there’s another piece, held by the British Library, that has some connection with her – although, if she arranged it, then I’m not quite sure what Wallace Waterston’s input was, even though it is catalogued under his name. Maybe he wrote the tune? I haven’t tried to find out.

ADDENDA to my earlier article:-

I can share images of the National Choir songs:-

‘The Smiling Spring’
Choral music - A Weary Day, by Margaret (Maggie) Wallace Thomson
‘The Weary Day’
  • ‘The smiling spring’, words by Burns, arr. by MWT for The National Choir [Vol.1 p.238] (Parlane, 1891)
  • ‘The Weary day’, original words and music, by MWT for The National Choir Vol.1 p.312 (Parlane, 1891)

Untraceable:-

  • ‘The voice of the deep’ (1883), bass song, written and composed by MWT [Addendum: referenced in a newspaper report of a concert that took place in St George’s Church, Paisley. A positive review!  However, the score might not have been published.]

I can also share the reference to the copy of ‘Break, break, break’ in the British Library:-

  • ‘Break, break, break!’, by Wallace Waterston, piano accompt by MWT (1894, published Paterson’s) – [addendum: copy in British Library – catalogue entry here.]

Moving with the Times: from Silent Movies to (oh, Gosh!) British Pathe Shorts

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
A tangle of movie film roll

You can tell I’ve spent too long in the late nineteenth century – in the research sense, that is.  Dizzy with excitement at the thought of seeing a silent movie – yes, it might actually come to pass, albeit not for a few months – I was almost deliriously pleased to discover that one of my research interests made British Pathe ‘shorts’ during the Second World War.  My aim is to contrast two singing careers, started only a decade apart – and here’s the first contrast. One began their career during the First World War and the silent movie era. The other made British Pathe shorts during the Second.

We think we’re so advanced, with our internet and our AI, electric cars and digital sound … but anyone born in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century might have been amazed by their own advances in technology.  A fin-de-siecle child treated to a magic lantern show, might have sung along to hymn or Scottish song texts projected on a magic lantern screen, the singing led by whichever grown-up had been co-opted in to help. When silent film came along, any music would be provided by a cinema pianist or a small ‘orchestra’ – possibly no more than a piano trio. What you heard would partly depend on who was playing and the bundle of music they’d brought with them.

But when the children became adults, they would would find themselves listening to the wireless or going out to ‘talking’ movies.  Watching, in adulthood, a short film performance by a contemporary star vocalist would have been unimaginable a decade earlier.

However, I must still cool my heels as I wait to see if (and when) the silent movie that I need to see, can be converted into a modern format.  Meanwhile, I’m trapped in the nineteenth century with the printed novel that gave rise to the movie.  As I read, I wonder how they managed to condense the story into a couple of hours, and then convey the whole plot by wordless gestures. 

I can’t wait to see.

Accessing Silent Films

Lucerna: a Magic Lantern Database

‘LUCERNA is an online resource on the magic lantern, an early slide projector invented in the 17th century.

‘For more than 350 years the magic lantern has represented and fed into every aspect of human life and every part of the world. It is still used today, both in its original form and through direct descendants like the modern data projector.

‘LUCERNA includes details of slide sets, slide images, readings and other texts related to slide sets, lantern hardware, people and organisations involved in lantern history, and much more.’

(Introduction to the Lucerna database)

Cover Image from Pixabay

Hearing Her at Last (She Died in 1936)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Why do collectors collect things? Especially old things.  The link with the past? The feeling that in some remote way, there’s a virtual thread linking you and an earlier era, or a particular individual?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m writing a long article about some late Victorian/Edwardian Scottish women musicians.  It’s virtually finished.  But there’s one more thing to do.

I have a single 78 rpm shellac recording of one of these women, whose reputation was not inconsiderable in her day.  She played in London.  She and her ‘orchestra ‘ made a handful of recordings.  But I have no means of playing this precious artefact.  I’ve tried to beg or borrow an old gramophone (or newer technology) to no avail, so eventually I bought a record player on Amazon.

All this because I wanted to know what instruments were in her band, a century ago! My article is incomplete without this detail. 

Petronella
There’s an anecdote about a whisky-filled teacup rattling on a piano edge whilst she played …!

Main image:- Beltona gramophone,  post 1923, from Wikipedia.

Highland Archive Centre – Conan Bridge School, 1880s

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Another Covid-ridden short from me today. See if you can see what excited me about these images of Conan Bridge School inventory …

Highland Archive Centre Facebook Posting 31 Aug 2024

Check out “Books and Borrowing Database Launch” on Eventbrite!”!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

How could I resist this event?! After all my efforts a few years ago, researching the borrowing of legal deposit music at the University of St Andrews in the early 19th century, I simply HAVE to attend this. It’s somewhat ‘meta’ for a scholar librarian to take a research interest in the borrowing habits of readers who ‘checked out’ centuries ago, isn’t it?

I’ve rearranged my research hours accordingly, so I  can finish the week on a research rather than a librarianly note:-

Books and Borrowing Database Launch Date: Fri, Apr 26 • 16:00 BST Location: University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/books-and-borrowing-database-launch-tickets-879501281007?aff=ebdsshother&utm_share_source=listing_android

Material Evidence of Use: Music that was Loved

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I accepted a generous donation of old books to the Library a couple of weeks ago. This presented me, personally, with a bit of a problem because our offices, furniture and contents are being moved around, and I had proudly emptied most of my shelves in readiness.  There will be fewer shelves in the other office.  And now I had two shelves full of old Scottish music  – right up my street – which needed cataloguing.

  • Most vital priority – get them done before I retire from the Library.
  • Almost as vital – to get them done before the move on Thursday next week!

Of course, the lovely thing is that they’re books I’ve encountered in various research contexts … the PhD; the Bass Culture project (https://HMS.Scot); the book chapter on subscriptions; and my own forthcoming monograph.

I catalogued like crazy on Thursday and Friday. I’ve catalogued Sammelbande (personal bound volumes) of songs, piano music and fiddle tunes. I’ve shown colleagues books signed by George Thomson.  I’ve indexed Gow’s strathspeys and reels. And yesterday I blogged about James Davie and his Caledonian Repository.

But I’ve also just enjoyed handling the music, because sometimes one finds some endearingly human evidence of the scores being used, even to the point of needing mending.  It’s quite touching to ponder how much a piece had been used, before it actually needed stitching – here, along a line where the edge of the printer’s block had originally left a dent in the paper:-

Stitched on one side, pasted on the other!

I’ve smiled at Georgian ladies’ stitched repairs to much-loved pieces, noticed with amusement a handful of early Mozart Allan books (yes, including some strathspeys and reels) in a fin-de-siecle Sammelband which had seen better days; spotted piano fingerings pencilled in; and best of all, found a tartan ribbon in a volume dedicated to the Duke of Sussex – his personal copy, which was first sold out of the family’s possession in 1844.  His library was dispersed after he died in straitened financial circumstances:-

Nine Scots Songs and three Duetts, newly arranged with a harp or piano forte accompaniment / by P. Anthony Corri

Whittaker Library catalogue entry

This book has the Duke’s family crest on a label pasted inside, and the outer cover is embossed with  ‘A F’ (Augustus Frederick), reflecting the monogram on the title page.

The Duke of Sussex’s mongram
Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843)

The tartan endpapers and tartan ribbon between pp.30-31 are a perfect illustration of what I have written about in a chapter on tartanry in my forthcoming monograph.  Everyone – whether nobility or commoner – liked a bit of tartan on or inside their Scottish song books, and here, someone even found a bit of tartan ribbon to use as a bookmark.

I have just a few of those books left to catalogue now.  There’s an intriguing one without a cover or title page, waiting for 9 am on Monday  …!  Hopefully, I’ll end up with an empty bookcase again.