Music by Subscription

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Contributed Chapter

Music by subscription : composers and their networks in the British music-publishing trade, 1676-1820 / edited by Simon D.I. Fleming, Martin Perkins. (Routledge, 2022)

I wrote a chapter for this book, which came out in 2022. I wonder if anyone has read RCS’s e-book version? The hardback itself seems to have sat on the shelf unnoticed for a whole year ….

‘Strathspeys, reels, and instrumental airs: a national product’ (pp.177-197)

Meanwhile, back in the Whittaker Library – a Catalogue Entry

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

One day, when I’ve retired from librarianship, all that will be left to show for my 36 years here will be the books and music on the shelves – and their catalogue records. Naturally, I made sure RCS has a copy of Mozart Allan and Jack Fletcher’s The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song. Click on the title to see how I’ve catalogued it!

I think you’ll agree I’ve managed to insert enough hints as to why I think it’s significant. There’s a book chapter coming out in an essay collection from the Centre for Printing History and Culture at Birmingham City University, so there will be more to read in due course.

Missing in Caption

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

So here’s the thing, as we say in Glasgow.  Looking up Doris Ketelbey some weeks ago, I thought I saw an interesting heading in one of her books: it was the title or first line of a Scottish song.  And I did EXACTLY what I warn students not to do.

It made such an impact that I was sure I’d find it again. After all, her book titles weren’t that numerous. Of course I’d remember. Moreover, if I’d found it once …  right? (It’s possible that I found it by accident, with an unlikely set of search words, though.)

I bought a copy of her most popular school textbook, shelved it, and that was me. Sorted!

Until I looked at it more closely. This was European and a bit of world history. Post-Jacobite, I couldn’t see anything where a Scottish song title would have been a suitable caption. And – had there been an illustration above it? – or was I havering? (The caption might have been on a digital image, not searchable as text, maybe …)

Maybe I imagined the illustration, but I remained convinced about that caption. Just a pity that I couldn’t remember the song!

  • I started searching last night. In bed, I lay awake, agitated by my failure to source the mystery book.
  • Today, I searched Hathi Trust and Open Library. No luck. 
  • I looked at Jisc Library Hub and Worldcat, but they weren’t going to show me what I needed.
  • Finally, I made a list of any Ketelbey titles which might possibly have touched on Scottish history (given that she wasn’t first and foremost a historian of Scottish history), and came up with another pair of books possibly also aimed at secondary schools.

There’s only one problem: the nearest copy is in Edinburgh.  I had hoped to find it  in Glasgow’s epic Mitchell Library, but this time I had no luck.

So … Amazon and eBay

However, I’ve ordered the pair for about the cost of a return to Edinburgh. If what I’m looking for isn’t there, then I have to admit defeat. I still don’t understand how something I found before is now so very elusive…

Image by Pexels from Pixabay and by succo from Pixabay

Enchanted!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

The publisher travelled extensively, actually dying off the coast of South Africa on his final trip. Whether all these trips were for business or pleasure (or both), we’ll never know!

Image by Bob, Pixabay

The library received our second-hand copy of a music book today. It came from the USA, having first been sold in Johannesburg. There is something magical about a book, itself aimed at the Scottish diaspora, having been published in Glasgow and then spending time in TWO of the continents visited by its publisher, before returning to Glasgow today.

I know that, technically, it makes no difference to the contents. Of course it doesn’t. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m over the moon with this particular book’s life-history!

Print and Tourism

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I have contributed a chapter to a forthcoming collection on Print and Tourism, which is being published by Peter Lang.  The completed manuscript will soon be going to the publishers, which is very exciting.  You might ask what a musicologist was doing, writing about print and tourism?  Well, it won’t be long before all is revealed. 

I had enormous fun writing this chapter, and I think folk will enjoy reading it.  It’s different.  Well, that’s hardly surprising, given the subject matter, but I’ve placed it in a wider cultural context than my usual more musicological offerings, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it in print.

A Question for You: What’s significant?

The topic arose from a book I acquired during lockdown.  Ironically, it was only a couple of weeks ago that it dawned on me that not only would we need to buy the essay collection for RCS’s library, but we’d also need a copy of the book which inspired it! I can’t think why that didn’t occur to me sooner, but it is on order and on its way, so I’ll be cataloguing it very soon. We’ll have it well before the essay collection is finally published!

So, your challenge is this: Can you work out what is significant about this map?!

I would never, ever have dreamed, when I went to Exeter to start my first, unfinished doctoral studies on mediaeval English plainsong and polyphony, that I would end up completing a different PhD thirty years on, and writing and being published on such a very different topic!

Reunited! Moffat and Kidson’s Nursery Rhymes

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

You’ll remember that I recently treated myself to an Edwardian book of children’s songs published by Augener, partly because I’m interested in the compilers, but mostly for the delightful cover? I subsequently discovered it was the sequel to an earlier book, British Nursery Rhymes. Well, I couldn’t have the second without the first, could I?

The sequel: Children’s Songs of Long Ago

Luckily, my interests are generally quite inexpensive! I will take them to the piano at some point – and look more closely at the contents, from the point of view of repertoire.

D’you know, just about every bit of research I’ve done has involved examining repertoire. Starting with 13th century Gregorian chant – not many people know I was initially a mediaevalist! I’ve come a long way.

A Fellow Back in 1901

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This is the third week of my Ketelbey Fellowship, and I arrived at St Andrews in pouring rain yesterday morning. Fortunately, it had subsided to a drizzle by the time I made my way to Martyrs Kirk, where materials from the Library special collections can be consulted. I didn’t get wet enough to risk dripping onto rare Victorian pamphlets! (I only know they were Victorian by the fact that the earlier numbers included God Save the Queen rather than the King – so they were published before January 1901.)

I had a ball! They each began with an editorial introduction – I love these. They’re so informative about the thinking behind whatever is in the book. Intriguingly, the editor seemed not to be the prime contributor, but all was revealed when I did some Googling later. Good old Baptie (Musical Scotland) informed me that the editor had two middle names, and used them as a nom de plume. No mystery after all! Moreover, one particular collaborator, more involved than most, was …

His daughter.

I didn’t quite get through the pile I’d called up, but I’m making good progress. And I encountered some interesting glimpses into social and political history. What’s more, if ever I needed proof that little girls’ education had a subtle difference to that of little boys, I found it today. It shouldn’t come as a surprise – I know it happened. But I wasn’t expecting to find this in a Sol-Fa song book!

It is such a luxury to have a desk in an office just a couple of minutes from a big university library. This morning, I snatched a quick coffee before I went back for another session with more of these instruction books. What’s more, I feel more a dedicated researcher here, compared to being ‘the librarian that also does research’ in Glasgow. It’s easier to focus, somehow. And tonight, I’m going to a research seminar, so I’ll get to meet some more historians then. Good times.

‘You can’t Judge a Book by its Cover’ (can you not?!)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I know you shouldn’t go on first appearances, but sometimes we do. (Why else do we make an effort with our appearance at interviews?!)

But I won’t spend my Saturday philosophizing. I just want to share my latest gorgeous ‘treat to self’, and a couple I bought earlier…

The above children’s book is a sequel! Yes, of course I have just bought a copy of the first book. Watch this space!

Lovely covers, and in Tonic Sol-Fa for easy reading!

Celebrating Milestones

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to buy myself something to mark a significant milestone – admit it, you do it too! Getting my second book submitted on time was certainly an important occasion for me. So, too, was commencing my Fellowship at St Andrews.

My gaze strayed to my eBay ‘Watch List’! I had ‘liked’ a lot of items. Some of them might, arguably, have been even more useful a month or two earlier, but I went through that list carefully. It was all printed matter, whether music or ephemera. I made a couple of offers (one has been accepted already!), then checked I couldn’t easily access the most desirable of the other publications some other way. That still left a handful of items I could definitely justify getting!

They will all be useful in the research I am now embarking upon – an extension of one particular aspect that enthralled me in my book project.

But one particular songbook – which I resolutely did not buy during the book-writing – sneakily snuck into my shopping basket! I had been telling it all along that it couldn’t be included, since it wasn’t published by a Scottish publisher. But although my specialism is Scottish music, there’s nothing to stop me buying something published by a contemporary English firm. And it is very pretty, as well as not being expensive! I’ll show you when it arrives.

Indeed, there are several English-published titles by ‘my’ Scottish educationalists that I now need to examine alongside the things they published in Scotland! But there’s a difference between treating myself and going overboard, so I deferred looking for those until another time. There will be library copies of quite a few of them.

Now, how do I explain the postie paying us more frequent visits for the next week or so?!

Image by Petra Reuter from Pixabay