Kilbarchan to Southport to Ottawa to Vancouver: Organist on the Move

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

So, we’ve talked about the church organ which has been relocated from Kilbarchan  (near Paisley in the west of Scotland) to Prenzlau in Germany.  Well, the first organist to play the instrument in Kilbarchan, went on to travel a whole lot further than that.

Edward Emanuel Harper

I’ve collated a lengthy document about the Glasgow Athenaeum’s second Principal. He was only with us a couple of years, of course. After that, he was Kilbarchan’s organist a little bit longer.

The family went briefly back to Southport, before heading to Ottawa – for a year – and then settled in Vancouver.

My notes are full of clips from newspapers. I traced his first Canadian year as an organist in Ottawa – and some snippets of genealogical data in Vancouver. But nothing of his teaching, and no trace of a large compositional output. I’ve looked at library and archive catalogues. Even a promising entry to his ‘archive’ leads to one piece, contributed anonymously by post in 1971. I’ve seen a digital copy of it. It was self-published.

So What?

You might ask  – I’ve already asked myself  – why I need to know? (Apart from the fact that these little research questions tend to take on a life of their own!)  And I think it’s because Harper was plainly a gifted individual  – a PhD from Dublin, an LRAM, a brilliant proponent of Chopin, sought after as an organist and recitalist, and a prolific composer.

So where is his Canadian output, in manuscript or published?

And what led him to resign from the Athenaeum, seen by many as a ‘plum’ job? Our records are missing for that era. Did we let a genius slip away? Or were there difficulties that history has graciously concealed?!

Image: St Andrew’s Church, Ottawa (Copyright: Jamie McCaffrey, Flickr)

Kilbarchan to Prenzlau

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It was 2018 when the BBC posted the story of a magnificent three-manual organ built by Hill and Son, which was being taken out of Kilbarchan West Church – no longer needed after a merger – and transported to Prenzlau:-

‘Wonderful’ church organ sent to Germany

The Hill organ at Kilbarchan West Parish Church (photo from Kilbarchan West website). *

It has taken a while – Covid got in the way – but in May 2026, there’s going to be an organ festival to celebrate the inauguration of the organ in its new home.

Festival website

Former Athenaeum Principal Inaugurated Kilbarchan Organ

Well, I’m excited, even though I don’t think I can justify going all that way. (Or can I?) You see, I’ve been researching the second Principal of the Glasgow Athenaeum – Dr Edward Emanuel Harper, who was only with us for two years, 1902-1904. After that, he left. There are no records extant to say why he left. But within a few months, by September 1904, he had been appointed organist of …

Kilbarchan Church.

He played the inaugural recital for the new Hill & Son organ.

British Newspaper Archive: Paisley & Renfrewshire Gazette – Saturday 22 October 1904

I won’t tell you his whole story here – I already mentioned him, only a few weeks ago. By 1909 he had gone back to Stockport, accepted a job offer in Canada, been widowed before they had even moved to Canada, but still moved his young family to Canada as planned, and started a new life. And then another new life on the opposite side of Canada a year later.

Part of his fascination for me is his elusiveness, I must admit. Why did he leave the Athenaeum? What persuaded him to return to his home-town, or to cross the Atlantic? I do know a little about what happened when he got there. And I’ve traced his publications in the UK, but can only find only one published in Canada. Why? It’s hard to imagine he didn’t publish any more.

But most pressingly – do I want to go and hear the rebuilt organ which was, originally, only a few miles away from Neilston, where I am currently organist? After all, I’m not researching organ-building, or organ music. And  Harper wasn’t a Scot, or published in Scotland – but he WAS briefly our Principal.  I’m drawn to the story and the connections  …

* The original Kilbarchan church was more recently known as Kilbarchan West Parish Church, before it combined with Kilbarchan East. At that point, the united congregation elected to use the East Church.

International Women’s Day: Rose Smith (and Marjory Kennedy-Fraser)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The beginning bars of The Road to the Isles, in a piano arrangement by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser.

This has become a two-post day? Well, it’s International Women’s Day. How can I not mention it?

I decided I would play music by women this morning. Rose Smith (one of the women I recently wrote about in the RMA Research Chronicle – you’ll be familiar with her name by now!) was a piano teacher, a composer, and an Episcopalian organist. She was born in Lanark, moved to Glasgow whilst still a child, and later lived with her husband and children in Rutherglen. Her composed songs were rather like those by Ivor Novello – I’ve acquired nearly all of what seems to be extant, but I think a lot is missing. She only self-published a few, and the rest – for variety show singers – may not even have been published at all.

There’s no surviving organ music, so there was nothing for it – I played her songs before morning worship today. I bet you she never played them in church! However, since no-one knew they were secular songs, there was no harm in it. They’re well-written pieces, and I do think it’s a shame they’re not known. I did recommend one to an RCS Finalist a few years ago, and it was performed with enjoyment and appreciation.

I have significant performance anxiety about recording my playing, but I did unearth a piano demo of three songs by Rose Smith, that I recorded for a student a few years ago. Be kind! This isn’t a perfect performance or a perfect recording, but does show how the songs go.

Quick piano demo of three songs by Rose Smith

For my outgoing voluntary today, I turned to a more well-known composer. I played Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s Eriskay Love Song, followed by The Road to the Isles.

Applause

I scored! I don’t usually get a round of applause after a voluntary.

I’ve got a new book of proper organ voluntaries by women composers, so I really must roll up my sleeves and learn some of them, but I suspect The Road to the Isles will prove hard to beat, as far as audience reaction goes …

‘February Article of the Month’ – Delighted!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Pink Scottish heather plants

What do you know? I’m delighted to discover that my article is February Article of the Month in vol.56 of the RMA Research Chronicle!

Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles

Good News! Article now Published in RMA Research Chronicle, and an [unrelated] Book Chapter Pending

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Silver Victorian pen and ink stand

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that my RMA Research Chronicle article was now available online as open access. Today, it’s actually in the published issue. Receiving this email is a great start to the day:-

“your article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles’, has now been published in Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle! You can view your article at https://doi.org/10.1017/rrc.2025.10009 “

Citation Details

Writing about Tourism

What’s this?, I hear you ask. Why would a musicologist write about tourism? Well, it’s like this: one of the song book titles that I explored in last year’s monograph, The Glories of Scotland, really deserved more space than I could give it in a monograph devoted to a nation’s music publishing. However, the opportunity came up to contribute a chapter to a Peter Lang Publication, Print and Tourism: Travel-Related Publications from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, edited by Catherine Armstrong and Elaine Jackson.

Today, I received the final proofs, which means that the book itself can’t be very far away. I really enjoyed writing this chapter – you could say that it’s decidedly more about publishing history, and tourism, than conventional musicology – and I really look forward to it actually being published.

My chapter (19 pages):-

‘The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song’: Jumping on the Festival of Britain Bandwagon?’

The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song - a song book published by Mozart Allan of Glasgow. The cover shows various Scottish tartans.
The Glories of Scotland – Mozart Allan’s souvenir songbook
Back cover of The Glories of Scotland song book
Back cover of The Glories of Scotland

Proud Addition to my Published Output: Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Edwardian lady and two little girls. Picture has a floral border.

Published online today, 12 January 2026, in the RMA (Royal Musical Association) Research Chronicle, by Cambridge University Press, on Open Access:- click here.

Writing this article was enormously fulfilling. I had encountered these ladies whilst researching my latest monograph, and I became convinced that they deserved profiling in their own right, and not merely as bit-parts in the larger picture occupied by their husbands, fathers and brothers.

The kernel of the abstract states that, ‘This article focuses on a group of Scottish women who did not make their names solely as art music composers or stellar performers, and for whom piano teaching was only part of their musical work. Four were related to the Scottish music publishers Mozart Allan, James Kerr, and the Logan brothers; the fifth published with Allan and Kerr, and also self-published.’

And all had fulfilling portfolio musical careers. Read on, and I’m sure you’ll agree!

In Search of a (Minor) Hero

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Remembering my fruitful walk on 3 January 2023, I looked outside today – yes, the third of January again – saw the sun shining (athough the temperature was literally freezing out there), and decided to go on another research-and-exercise outing. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve been exploring the story of a Victorian Glasgow music professor, so I headed for St George’s Cross by subway, to see a former church where he had once been organist. He had started his tenure in an earlier building, which was burned down in a fire, but a new one was built in a mere two years, so he must have resumed duties at that point. I already knew that, as with organist Maggie Thomson’s Paisley church, this Glasgow church had likewise now been converted into rather classy flats.

St George’s-in-the-Fields, Glasgow

Unperturbed, I headed next to the Mitchell Library, and up to the fourth floor where the old music card catalogue lives; it has never been digitized. This eminent individual certainly composed enough, but mostly in a light-music vein, and not published by any of Glasgow’s bigger music publishers. However, I was still surprised to discover that he is completely unrepresented in the card catalogue.

Ottoman Coffeehouse

To drown my sorrows, I headed next to a celebrated Turkish coffee shop in Berkeley Street. (The premises had once been a club for Glasgow musicians, and our hero had been included in a song-book that they sponsored; clearly I needed to have a coffee there in his honour.) Foiled again! There was a queue out to the pavement, just to get inside the cafe. Back I went to the Mitchell Library cafe, to get my coffee more quickly!

It was still bright and sunny outside, so my next port-of-call was India Street (on the opposite side of the M8, near Charing Cross station). This had been both of professional significance and latterly home to our hero, and although I knew modern developments had taken place, I still hoped that I might be able to walk the length of the street. Thwarted! Scottish Power sits squatly and solidly across the line of the road, and pedestrian access is blocked by ongoing building works before you even get to it.

I could have headed into the city centre to gaze at the Athenaeum, but I’ve passed it hundreds of times, and there are plenty of pictures on the web – it wouldn’t have felt like much of a discovery. Sighing – for the mere glimpse of a road sign at the wrong end of  India Street had not exactly thrilled me – I headed for the bus home.

But fate had one more twist for me: whilst I was looking on the travel app to find out when the next bus was due …

… the next bus sailed past my stop.

I decided that maybe walking briskly to the Subway would be quicker than waiting for another bus. At least the Subway dates from the era when our hero was in his prime and doing well.

‘How did you get on?’, I was asked, when I got back home. I was forced to admit that, apart from St-George’s-in-the-Fields, I had really seen virtually nothing.

On the plus side, my FitBit is as happy as Larry.  Finally, it said, she has realised that Christmas is over, and it’s time for the healthy living to resume!

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.

Mystifying Timewarp Challenge

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It’s not as though I’m unaccustomed to what I’ve been doing in odd moments for the past few days.  Over the years, I’ve opened dozens, indeed hundreds of old song books and other music publications, trying to read their prefaces, annotations and harmonic arrangements as though I were a contemporary musician rather than a 21st century musicologist.  Looking at music educational materials is likewise not new to me.

Enter Dr Walford Davies and his The Pursuit of Music

He was the first music professor at the University of Aberystwyth, but he was also hugely popular in the 1920s-30s through his broadcasting work – fully exploiting the new technology of wireless and gramophone for educational purposes, and to share his love of music with the ordinary layman wishing to know more about all they could now listen to. This book was written after he’d mostly, but not entirely retired.

It wasn’t exactly what I expected! If I thought he would write about what made the Pastoral Symphony pastoral, or Die Moldau describe a river’s journey, I rapidly had to change my expectations. 

His audience was apparently not just the average layperson, but also young people in their late teens, not long out of school. If the reader didn’t play the piano, they were urged to get a friend to play the examples for them.  (Considering the book is over 400 pages, you can imagine how long they’d be – erm – captive!)

Dedication

Examples for your friendly pianist to play!

And this was aesthetics, 90 years ago. I struggled to get into the mindset of a layperson wanting to know what music (classical, in the main) was ‘about’, without knowing what a chord was, or realising that music occupies time more than space. Would I have benefited from that knowledge? Would being told in general terms what the harmonic series was, have helped me appreciate the movements of a string quartet? Or Holst’s The Planets?

It wasn’t about musical styles over the years. I didn’t read it cover to cover, but neither did it appear to explain musical form and structure as I would have expected.

Davies’ biographer, H. C. Colles, did comment that it was a mystifying book, and suffered from the fact that the author’s strengths were in friendly and persuasive spoken, not written communication.

I’ve only heard snatches of his spoken commentary, so I can’t really say.  Apart from which, Colles made an observation about Davies’ written style. Colles was a contemporary authority who knew Davies personally – and he may have been picking his own words carefully, so as not to cause offence. My own disquiet is more a matter of content:  was it what his avowed audience needed, to start ‘understanding music’?

I think I have been mystified enough.

I wonder what the Nelson editors made of this book by one of the great names of their age? They published it, and I think regarded him as a catch, but what did they actually think?!

And did the layperson, assuming they got through the 400+ pages, lay it down with a contented sigh, feeling that now they understood music?

Don’t Give Up Too Soon

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I have a tiny cutting on my pinboard, which reminds me that,

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close to success they were when they gave up. – Thomas Edison

It’s painfully true in life, but it’s also particularly pertinent in archival research!

Yesterday, I was trawling the most random of files. To be fair, a couple were even labelled ‘Miscellaneous’ in the handlist. However, they date from an era I need to know more about, so I was going to look at them!  I entered a rabbit warren of curiosities.

  • Rejections, marked ‘Refused’, or ‘Returned’
  • Objections:- ‘You interviewed my son and sent him for a medical before deciding he was too old for an apprenticeship. Why?’ [My precis, not a quote]
  • Union matters. ‘If you don’t join the union, you put yourself and us in a difficult position  because we can’t work alongside you’ [again, my summary]
  • Sob stories, like the widow whose friends said her story ought to be made into a film, or a book. Apparently, she was robbed and then incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in America, and now she wanted Nelson’s to publish her story of those calamities … (‘Refused‘)
  • Inks
  • Plant (machinery)
  • An Indian paper mill under the mistaken impression that Nelson’s were interested in a collaboration  …

By 4 pm, I had a splitting headache, and was quickly flicking through pages as fast as I dared – the paper was fragile, and I still  didn’t want to miss something important.

Why not admit defeat and give up on this box file?, I mused. There was nothing relevant in it. Interesting, but irrelevant.

Note signed by composer Peter Warlock
Note from Warlock to a song book compiler

Then I saw it. A beautiful little note from no less than British composer Peter Warlock! In the grand scheme of things, it’s not of huge significance – it’s just an apology for his delayed response,  and a request to correct a small detail before publication  – but it does confirm the editor’s identity (something I hadn’t yet managed to do, apart from finding a footnote in someone else’s biography), and it reminds me  that I should index the Nelson collection that contains Warlock’s unison choral song. 

This handwritten note from March 1929 was written less than two years before  Warlock died on 17 December 1930, aged only 36.  He is thought to have committed suicide over a perceived loss of his creativity.  I believe he was something of a tortured soul, though I’m not familiar with his detailed biography.

I so very nearly didn’t find this note! Yet again, that maxim has proved true. Dogged persistence wins every time.  The tragedy is that Warlock (Peter Heseltine) was too tormented to be able to keep going at all. What else might he have achieved? How much more might he have written?