Music Engravers (a recap)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Six years ago, I wrote a wee blogpost about music engravers for Whittaker Live – the Whittaker Library had a Blogspot blog for many years, until I migrated it to WordPress last year.

Just in case it ever goes missing, I thought I’d reproduce that single posting here, now. The truth of the matter is that music librarians don’t generally spend a lot of time with really old volumes, whilst rare books librarians spend a lot of time with really old volumes … but music is only a small part of their remit. This means that things that are obvious to librarians with one specialism may not be obvious to their counterparts in a different library or department.

Can You Tell Your Scripsit From Your Sculpsit? (20 May 2015)

https://whittakerlive.blogspot.com/2015/05/can-you-tell-your-scripsit-from-your.html

Here’s a little bit of book history to broaden your mind!

If you’re looking at REALLY old music, sometimes you see tiny writing at the bottom of the title page – “Script” or “Sculpt”, and then a name.  Rudolf Rasch, who is a book historian, and Associate Professor of Musicology (Emeritus) at Utrecht University,  has kindly provided us with an explanation:-

“Script = scripsit = “he wrote”, normally this refers to the one who designed the engraving or made a drawing as a design for the engraving. This should refer to a title page only. [Typesetter is not a good description of this person.]
“Sculpt = sculpsit = “he sculpted”, refers to the engraver.

“If a title page is signed by a “sculpsit” one is not a priori certain that the same engraver did the music too. The best way to decide whether the engraver of the title page also engraved the music is too look at the form of the letters on the title page and on the music pages. In many situations title page and music are engraved by the same hand, but there may be cases where the publisher had different engravers work at the title page and the music.
“But please keep in mind: 18th-century indications are never full-proof. Never turn off common sense.”So now you know. Just a little advancement in knowledge every day …!  One day you might be grateful to Whittaker for sharing this little piece of book history with you!

If you enjoyed this, you’ll love a blogpost that Kelsey Jackson Williams wrote for this present blog, a few years ago. Here you are:-

https://claimedfromstationershall.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/the-origins-of-scottish-copperplate-engraving-musical-and-otherwise/

Georgian lady borrowers at the University of St Andrews

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I have just contributed a blogpost to a research project blog that is hosted by the University and Stirling. The project is called, Books and Borrowing 1750-1830: an Analysis of Scottish Borrowing Records. There are a large number of participating partners – visit this page to find out more.

I revisited Miss Elizabeth Lambert (later Mrs Williams), Mrs Bertram and her daughters, and Principal Playfair’s daughter, Janet. Here’s the blogpost:-

7 Pieces of Music to be Arranged: Women Borrowers and the First Female Cataloguer of the St Andrews Copyright Music Collection

Books and Book Borrowing: Research led by Stirling University

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

If you were involved with, or followed the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall copyright music project, then news of this project led by the University of Stirling will probably also interest you.

Books and Borrowing 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers

Here’s how the project is introduced:-

“Our project uncovers and reinterprets the history of reading in Scotland in the period 1750 to 1830. Using formerly unexplored (or underexplored) borrowing records, we are [ … ] creating a valuable new resource that will reveal hidden histories of book use, knowledge dissemination and participation in literate culture.”

I’ve been invited to contribute a blogpost about the lady musicians of St Andrews, so watch this space … !

The 2nd Monograph

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve been busily posting away on the Facebook page, so I thought I’d better update the blog as well. These few lines are taken from the FB page.

YESTERDAY there was a slight hint of despair as I wrote,

My second book is going to take quite a while to write! I’m only technically a postdoctoral researcher for one and a half days (10.5 hours) a week. I told myself I had to write 250 words a day, five days a week.But factoring in answering emails, attending the odd meeting, doing the odd bit of research, ordering the odd book or downloading the occasional article, and how much time do I have in which to actually write? So the first week of this bold resolution has resulted in …? Not exactly 1250 words for the introductory chapter. Oh, they’re good words, in the right order, but nonetheless … I shall have to pull my finger out tomorrow morning!!

TODAY, things started to look up:

ONE DAY THERE WILL BE A SECOND BOOK. I’ve redeemed myself. I set out to write 250 words a day, five days a week. I didn’t manage that in the first week. However, on the first day of the second week, I do now have a total of 1500 words – mathematicians will work out that I’ve caught up before the Easter break. This may be the only time that it happens, of course …

THE What are you reading? April 2021

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I have contributed to the April 2021 ‘What are you reading?’ column in the Times Higher Education. My chosen book was Sean Reidy’s Dunbrody, A Famine Odyssey: How JFK’s Roots Helped Revive an Irish Town (Sean Reidy, 2020)

Follow this link:- https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/what-are-you-reading-april-2021 – it’s easy to make a free account which entitles you to read a few articles a month.

Lambeth Palace Library fit for the 21st Century

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I saw reference to Lambeth Palace’s long-awaited new library on Twitter. (My thanks to Ely Cathedral’s Honorary Assistant Bishop, Graham Kings, for sharing the link – we’re not acquainted, but credit where credit is due!) Revd. Kings shared the link to a new Church Times article, which I shall share here now, for the benefit of all followers of the Claimed From Stationers Hall legal deposit music network.

Church Times, 19 March 2021. “Declan Kelly talks to Tim Wyatt about the new Lambeth Palace Library building”

Archbishop’s library fully public at last

Full citation:- https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/19-march/features/features/archbishop-s-library-fully-public-at-last

Why am I interested? Well, Sion College was a college (essentially a social club) for London clergy, and it used to be entitled to receive legal deposit publications under copyright legislation. Some of the old legal deposit material from Sion College subsequently went to Lambeth Palace library. Even though Sion had long ago jettisoned the music before passing on book stock to Lambeth Palace, it’s wonderful to see the new facilities here. I haven’t added this link to our network bibliography, since it isn’t really connected to what we were researching – but it’s still to good to see the ‘long tail’ of the story – the ‘what happened next’.

I don’t have permission to share the picture at the head of the Church Times article. However, you can see it in all its glory at the link that I’ve shared.

Women in Music: article by Prof. James Porter

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Professor Porter has a new article in the Journal of Musicological Research, and I look forward to reading it at the earliest opportunity. Did you know an Englishwoman called Harriet Wainewright wrote an opera, Comala, in 1792?

Here are the article’s details, if you have access to this Taylor & Francis Journal:-

Research Article

An English Composer and Her Opera: Harriet Wainewright’s Comàla (1792)

James PorterPublished online: 16 Feb 2021

New Zealand Music: New Website

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve recently been notified of a new website to explore: Musical Notables of New Zealand, authored by scholars Clare Gleeson and Libby Nichol. It provides background to people involved in music in New Zealand between 1840 and 1920 – as you can imagine, I very much look forward to exploring this blog further!

18th CENTURY PARATEXT RESEARCH NETWORK SEMINAR – Weds 17 March

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m speaking at the second Pondering Paratext seminar next Wednesday afternoon between 2.30 and 4 pm. There will also be a talk by Dr Hazel Wilkinson.

My talk is entitled ‘Scottish Songs and Dances ‘Preserved in their Native Simplicity’ and ‘Humbly Dedicated’: Paratext in Improbable Places’. Amongst other delights, I’ll be sharing some of my recent findings about subscription lists to Scottish fiddle tunebooks.

You can book to attend the seminar by clicking this Eventbrite link here – and find out more about the Eighteenth Century Paratext Research Network – by clicking this link.

(Musicologists of this kind of music – do take a closer look at the tune pictured above. The book it comes from is riddled with errors in the basslines – I know this for a fact. So, the first bar and the third bar here are actually very similar, and I’m tempted to play the first bar with the bassline that the third bar uses. I promise not to talk such heresy in my talk, of course, when I shall focus on the paratext rather than the notes themselves!)