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.
Some reading for me, later on this evening! I’ve been made aware of a potentially interesting article by Alice Wickenden:-
Things to Know before Beginning, or: Why Provenance Matters in the Library
(Inscription: the Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History, June 2020)
I asked a question on my Facebook page, Glasgow Music Publishers 1880-1950. Maybe folk don’t realize I genuinely would like to hear their thoughts! Here it is again, for anyone who doesn’t use Facebook:-
So, now. Has any particular topic really resonated with you, or has there been anything you wish I’d expand upon? I have the opportunity to write a longer piece (not immediately, but in the foreseeable future) and I’m trying to decide what to focus on!
(Confession – the image is of cards by Dundee printers, Valentines. I missed out on the eBay auction, but snaffled the picture earlier …)“
I’m just leaving this thought here, as a general observation. I was reading recently about Victoria and Albert, tartan and the phenomenon of “Balmorality”. It would be glib, and wrong, to pronounce that everyone loves tartan, but a lot of people certainly do.
Today, I’m reviewing a book about James Macpherson’s Ossian and its pervasive influence on culture not just in Scotland or Great Britain, but on the continent, too. Again, the actual facts are far more nuanced than this bald statement, but it is clear that, because Napoleon was an enthusiastic fan, a lot of people followed him.
So, there’s a parallel, isn’t there? How often has the approval, or disapproval, of a head of state led to a craze for something cultural, be it the warp and weft of a type of cloth, or the exploits of a misty distant hero?
Earlier this year, I was commissioned by The People’s Friend to write a feature about forgotten women composers. You might wonder why I’m excited about this, but there are actually several reasons:-
You could say my earlier serial had a prophetic title, because my own Norfolk “family never knew” I was doing my PhD – my second attempt at one – until I had actually got it! (The serial was totally different, and certainly not autobiographical – I have no secret, lost children, only the three that everyone knows about!)
To the curious:- my latest commission is logged in Pure, our institutional repository, so you can take a look. The serial will be harder to find. I have my own authorial copy, and more recently bought the only copy that I could find on eBay at the time. If you manage to get hold of a copy – well done! Make a cuppa, get a HobNob or two, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
I recently wrote a blog-post about Alexander Campbell, for the Romantic National Song Network. Campbell was one of “my” song-collectors, who occupied a good bit of my time whilst I was writing my PhD thesis and subsequently my book. (And I learned a whole lot more about his “trip-advisor”, Sir John Macgregor Murray, when I was writing a paper for that seminar at the Sorbonne last year!)
Here’s the link to the blogpost, which went live this evening. Get yourself a cuppa and settle down for a read …
https://rnsn.glasgow.ac.uk/song-collector-alexander-campbell/
Image:- Lanrick Castle Gatehouse, entrance to Sir John Macgregor Murray’s home (Campbell’s trip-advisor!)
Post Script! By the way, James D Hobson has just posted a great blogpost, A Guide to the Georgian Coaching Inn. Read about the kind of experience Alexander Campbell may have had, on the occasions he travelled by coach or stayed at an inn!
So they say! Very well, but whatever the era, and the differing nuances in the contents, there’s no denying tartan was often used as a cover for books of Scottish songs, Scottish poems, stuff by Robert Burns, stuff by Walter Scott (there was a firm specialising in miniatures, like this picture of Scott’s The Lady in the Lake ballad, no music here) …
It’s my research day. I faced a choice: write a lecture for November, work on a book chapter for January, or get back to the Scottish music publishers project. I feel as though I’ve been away from the project for quite a while, writing papers on other things, so today is going to be a project day. I know the other things are important, but I need to reconnect with my main preoccupation, if it is to become a book at some stage in the future.
So … the question of the tartan book covers …..
[more anon!]
Here’s another quick update, for the benefit of those who don’t follow the Facebook pages for The Claimed From Stationers Hall or Glasgow Music Publishers projects!
Next week, I’m giving a paper (well, I’ve already video-recorded it, but it’s being given next week) at a conference of cataloguing and metadata librarians. What else would I talk about but legal deposit music in libraries?! So this time, it’s called ‘The Cinderella of Stationers’ Hall: Music (and Metadata) in Georgian Legal Deposit Libraries’.
In a spirit of sheer whimsy, I’ve incorporated a picture of Cinderella as very pale background for the title page of my powerpoint – a volvelle picture from my favourite childhood book. This was a French picture-book of Cinderella, given to me by my late father when he taught on a teaching exchange in France. He died before I got my PhD, and wouldn’t half have been surprised to find his gift to seven-year old me, used as illustration for a perfectly serious presentation about a postdoc research project! You see it here in its technicolour glory. The conference will see it faded to near obscurity, but I know it’s there. A tribute to Pa!
The first of my research papers to be video-recorded last weekend was a paper about some very old tunes, which appeared in one version in Scottish sources, and in a different but apparently related version in Borders ones. This is for the English Folk Dance and Song Society conference in a few weeks’ time. Well, with all these old sources on my mind, I inadvertently made things more difficult for myself at work today. We were ‘practising’ a new lIbrary lending procedure for when the students return, and it involved setting up fake readers and fake book requests, to make sure the routine worked in practice. I used fake names associated with my research paper, because I was sure they were unlikely to crop up as real people on our system. And then I started getting my imaginary readers to request genuine books as part of this practice session. I shouldn’t have done it – those imaginary readers had very specific requirements, ALL concerning some aspect of the Scottish Borders, Northumbria and Cumbria.
They had me running all round the library tracking down books from every corner, high and low. If I had had any sense, I’d have picked books from one single shelf! My Fitbit tells me I have walked further than I’ve done in months, today, and to judge by the calories expended, I’ve carried more weights ditto. That will teach me to use my imagination ….
You know what happens when you empty a plastic carton, and it sort of collapses in on itself? After a weekend in which I recorded not one, but TWO conference papers, did sundry domesticity and not much else, I feel very much deflated!
Imagine my – ahem – joy that I have a day actually Working-At-Work tomorrow for the first time in six months. Just when I feel as though I could do with a quiet day at my home-desk with copious cups of tea …
But the good thing is that, apart from a third conference paper on a different topic, and a book chapter to start work on, I am currently up to date! I may yet get back to my late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Scottish music publishers. Although the book chapter just might be rather time-consuming. Nonetheless, it’s a nice topic and will make a pleasant and RELATED change to my main focus, so I can’t complain too much.
I think my fingers should be tingling. You know I bought myself two scores published by Bruce, Clements & Co earlier this month? One of them was the opera by the publisher himself, W. B. Moonie.
And …I now have a copy signed by the composer!
However, such excitement has to be kept in check as I work on my second conference paper of the month.
I’m primarily working from home at present, both with my researcher and with my librarian hats on. Right now, in my research role, I have undertaken to give three conference papers in as many months, so I’m rather busy writing! I haven’t forgotten my Scottish music publishers – certainly not! – but I only officially have 1.5 research days a week (shhh, don’t mention all the evening efforts!) – so I need to focus on things with deadlines. The conference papers will be recorded and shared online.
Time will tell if I manage to make any visits to other libraries in the foreseeable future. Since lockdown, I seem to have purchased more books and music than I have room for, but some things aren’t available to purchase!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 