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.
Last year, colleague and researcher Brianna Robertson-Kirkland made a visit to Sydney Living Museums to explore their historical collection of bound nineteenth-century songs. A short video was made about her visit and what she discovered. It’s such a lovely video that I thought you’d appreciate watching it, so I’ll share the link here:-
Private bound collections of songs are, of course, slightly different from the library-bound collections of legal deposit music, although they do share similarities: someone decided what to collate in each volume. But whereas a young lady might only have a few bound volumes of her personal repertoire, the libraries were dealing with a constant flow of scores registered at Stationers’ Hall, and had to make sense of them all, deciding what to include – or what to leave out. So – you could say the Sydney bound volumes are like, but not like! I’d still love to see them one day, though. Who knows …
Although, as we’ve seen, some Georgian legal deposit libraries didn’t actually want to retain music – after all, it wasn’t yet a university subject – the pattern of retention was varied to say the least. The University of St Andrews kept quite a bit of music. Meanwhile, the University of Edinburgh retained some but certainly not all that was on offer. However, there’s one category of musical material that seems to have been deemed worth keeping, and that was pedagogical material. I had already noticed quite a bit of it at the University of St Andrews, and I did a bit of research into who borrowed what kind of material. Bear in mind that an ability to play the piano was quite desirable for the well-bred young Georgian miss. When I started looking at the Edinburgh collection more recently, I was interested to see that music teaching books were popular there, too. I wonder if the Edinburgh professors ever borrowed music for their daughters and friends in the same way the St Andrews chaps did?
I plan to see what I can identify on the Edinburgh spreadsheets, and see how it maps across with the St Andrews collections, just to see if there’s much overlap. It’ll be a bit hit-or-miss, but a quick survey will tell me if there is an interesting story to be uncovered. Coincidentally, I did once wonder if any students at my workplace might be interested in the history of piano pedagogy. Little did I realise that I might eventually be the one getting interested in much earlier material in a research capacity!
If I got interested in all of the pedagogical material published between 1780 and 1840, it would be a bit like Alice disappearing down a rabbit-hole, so I’m inclined to focus on one category in particular: the teaching of “thorough bass” (aka “figured bass”) and harmony – in other words, on theory, more than instrumental technique. And if I were to find a few observations about teaching music theory to girls and women, then that would be an added bonus, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t expect the approach to be different, but it would be interesting to notice any remarks made specifically to them.
Here’s a thought, to start with. After his opening preface, Latour’s thorough bass tutor is heavy on musical examples and light on text, which is a little disappointing given my predeliction for paratext. Nonetheless, in that opening preface, we learn that he aimed to teach “what a young Lady ought to know, viz: to be able to accompany the Voice with propriety, to play from a figured Bass, and to compose her own Preludes, Variations, &c.” From this, we can tell that the “young Lady” was not expected merely to be a performer, but to compose (or improvise?) as well. And the pages of examples that follow provide a good introduction to generating variations – perhaps on popular songs, such as the many sets of variations on national and operatic airs that abounded in the early nineteenth century.
If one instructional treatise tells us this much, how much more might the others reveal?! I have a new book that I need to start reading: David J Golby, Instrumental Teaching in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Routledge, 2016 ) – originally an Ashgate imprint, 2004.
Today, we share with you something completely different. Dr Eva Moreda Rodriguez, Music Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, writes for us about Spanish legal deposit and its value in terms of historical sound recordings. It underlines the importance of legal deposit in a much wider variety of contexts than one would at first imagine.
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Shortly after Claimed from Stationers’ Hall was set up, I had the opportunity to experience first-hand how the requirement to submit copies of every printed work to a library can, if satisfied, change our understanding of music and musical cultures of the past in radical ways. Indeed, when I started to research the arrival of recording technologies in Spain from 1878 onwards and the responses of Spaniards to them, I was faced with the issue of a lack of sources. I did indeed have newspaper and magazine articles – but these were often brief announcements or texts intended for scientific dissemination which did shed little light on how the average Spaniard would have reacted upon hearing a phonograph for the first time. References to the phonograph in Spanish literature were surprisingly scarce, and memoirs and journals did not shed much light on the issue either. Discovering, at the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica (BDH), a zarzuela by successful composer Ruperto Chapí named El fonógrafo ambulante (The travelling phonograph) and dated 1899 prompted the question: did any other theatrical and musical plays of the time feature phonographs and gramophones, and if so, can they shed any light on cultural attitudes towards recording technologies at the time?A search at the BDH website, as well as at The Internet Archive and at the premises of the Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNE) revealed that at least fifteen plays were premiered in Spain between 1885 and 1914 which featured a phonograph or gramophone in a significant role. Most of those works (libretti and, on some occasions the music) arrived at the BNE through the legal deposit mechanism. This, in itself, tells us a lot about both legal deposit in Spain and the significance of theatrical genres in the late 19th and early 20th century. Indeed, some sort of legal deposit requirement (privilegio real) had existed in Spain from 1716, but a full, comprehensive legal deposit norm was not introduced until 1957. In practice, this meant that, through the 19th century and early 20th century, legal deposit requirements were often met haphazardly, and not all authors deposited copies of their works at the BNE, then the only legal deposit library in Spain.
Source: Biblioteca Valenciana
Theatrical authors, though, had an incentive to do so. Theatre-going was, at the time, one of the preferred pastimes of Spaniards of all social classes, particularly in urban areas. A number of popular theatre genres, combining music with the spoken word to different extents (sainete, zarzuela, revista, invento, pasillo), flourished in an ever-growing number of theatres. Intended for consumption and entertainment, many of these plays were replaced after a few runs, forcing the authors to constantly come up with new ideas: there was, indeed, money to be made, but the environment was competitive. In this climate, one of the few weapons authors had in order to protect themselves from unscrupulous impresarios who might stage their works without compensating them financially was to deposit copies of their works at the BNE so that authorship could be conclusively proven in case of legal disputes.
A happy consequence of this practice is that works that might not have survived otherwise – because they were generally ephemeral, inconsequential and often of limited artistic merit – have made it to our days, providing us with a fascinating corpus to study both theatrical culture in Restoration Spain and broader social and cultural issues during this period. These plays were written primarily to entertain, and as such they satirized certain aspects of contemporary politics and society – but they never decisively challenged the status quo and ultimately celebrated the Spanish pueblo as a community of individuals happy to live by traditional, conservative values: for example, a number of these plays may feature fiery, memorable female characters, but at the same time the genre mocked the nascent first-wave feminist movement relentlessly.
In my research, I have been working under the hypothesis that these plays would have presented ideas and discourses around recording technologies that would have resonated with their audiences – always within the generally conservative, paternalistic framework I have described above. For example, several of the plays develop the idea of the phonograph being able to reproduce reality with the utmost fidelity – by recording in private, by accident, statements that individuals would not have dared making in public – and then playing them back. Wives are found out not to love their husbands, and vice-versa, and politicians are found out to lie to their electorate in pursuit of votes. Such episodes, however, were developed purely for comic effect, and one never finds even the slightest suggestion that technological modernity – which was generally seen as critical to the advancement of Spain – should be coupled up with social or political modernity. This is too the case with El fonógrafo ambulante, to which I have referred earlier: the travelling phonograph that arrives in a remote Andalusian village at first threatens to destabilize the social order by making the heroine, Araceli, consider breaking her engagement to the town’s mayor and instead marrying Antero, the phonograph operator, instead. However, once it is established that both Araceli and Antero are true representatives of the Spanish pueblo, young and resourceful but ultimately attached to traditional values, the phonograph, which has brought them together, becomes a guarantee for social order, and the play ends with all villagers gathered around the device and listening in fascination.
Followers of this blog will know that you can look at historical piano teaching materials in the libraries that hold legal deposit collections. Nowadays, there are a handful of big national and university libraries in the UK that still receive one copy of everything published, under statutory legislation. But there are other libraries – especially in Scotland – that also received this material, until the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign.
Theodore Latour was pianist to King George IV – Victoria’s uncle. He taught privately and at girls’ schools, played and composed, and also wrote some piano tutor books. As it happens, Emily Bronte had music by Latour in her collection, including one of his books of progressive exercises, although I haven’t examined that particular publication. (Robert K. Wallace mentions it, in his Emily Bronte and Beethoven: Romantic Equilibrium in Fiction and Music.)
It’s possible to find copies of some of Latour’s works online via Google Books, IMSLP or Archive.org, so if you’re interested, we could point you in the right direction.
I have been experimenting with other ways of talking/writing about the Stationers’ Hall Georgian legal deposit music corpus. Here are my Saturday afternoon efforts. Have you tried any such audiovisual presentations in your own research? Do you find them helpful?
Hans Gal (1890-1987) catalogued Edinburgh University’s Reid Music Library during the summer and autumn of 1938, at the instigation of Sir Donald Tovey. The latter was keen to find work for the gifted composer and musicologist, who had emigrated from Vienna when Hitler annexed Austria. (Here’s a recording of his earlier Promenadenmusik for wind band, which he wrote in 1926. ) A grant from the Carnegie Trust enabled Gal’s catalogue to be published in 1941. When the Second World War ended, Gal joined the University music staff, and remained there beyond retirement age.
The reader is referred to the Hans Gal website for further biographical information (I am checking this weblink, which occasionally falters):- http://www.hansgal.org/
Gál, Hans, Catalogue of manuscripts, printed music and books on music up to 1850 : in the Library of the Music Department at the University of Edinburgh (Reid Library) (London, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1941)
(Partially) catalogued by Gal
The catalogue is in three parts, listing manuscripts, printed music, and books on music. Gal did not list every individual piece of music in the library, but prioritised more serious classical music, whether vocal or instrumental. One might suggest that there were various reasons for Gal’s decision.
In his preface, he explains that, ‘for practical reasons I confined this catalogue to the old part of the library, namely the manuscripts, printed music and books on music up to 1850, which is the latest limit of issues that might be looked upon as of historical importance’. [Gal, vii]
However, this was not the only limitation placed on the listing. Gal omitted many of the pieces of sheet music that must have arrived as legal deposit copies during the Georgian era, until copyright legislation changed in 1836. The Reid music cupboards contained a number of Sammelbänder, or ‘binder’s volumes’, ie, bound volumes of assorted pieces of music. Occasionally Gal made oblique reference to these, eg, to cover the 44 items in volume D 96:-
“Songs, Arias, etc., by various composers (Th. Smith, D. Corri, Bland, R. A. Smith, Rauzzini, Davy, Kelly, Urbani; partly anon.) Single Editions by Longman & Broderip, Urbani, Polyhymnian Comp., etc., London (ca. 1780-1790). Fol. D 96″ [Gal, 44]
Longman & Broderip were prolific music publishers, amongst the most assiduous of firms making trips to Stationers’ Hall to register new works. They published a lot of theatrical songs and arrangements, and much dance music, as well as the more serious, ‘classical’ music repertoire. The catalogue entry cited above details some more commonly known composers of decidedly middle-of-the road, if not downmarket material. One does not need to speculate as to whether Gal considered such material less respectable, for he made no secret of his disdain for much of the music published in this era! In the preface, he asserts that,
“The gradual declining from Thomas Arne to Samuel Arnold, Charles Dibdin, William Shield, John Davy, Michael Kelly, is unmistakeable, although there is still plenty of humour and tunefulness in musical comedies such as Dr Arnold’s “Gretna Green”, Dibdin’s “The Padlock”, Shield’s numerous comic operas and pasticcios.
“After 1800 the degeneration was definitive, in the sacred music as well as in songs and musical comedy. […] It is hardly disputable that the first third of the nineteenth century, the time of the Napoleonic Wars and after, was an age of the worst general taste in music ever recorded in history, in spite of the great geniuses with which we are accustomed to identify that period.” [Gal, x]
Faced with several hundred of such pieces in a number of bound volumes, and quite possibly a limited number of months in which to complete the initial cataloguing, it is hardly surprising if Gal was content to make a few generic entries hinting at this proliferation of ‘bad taste’. (One might add as an aside, that Gal’s wife at one point observed that Gal ‘hated swallowing the dust in archives’, in connection with an earlier extended project in the late 1920s – clearly, he was able to overcome his distaste when the need arose! (See http://www.hansgal.org/hansgal/42, citing private correspondence of 10.10.1989)
Interestingly, it is evident that Edinburgh, like several other of the legal deposit libraries, must have been selective in what was retained, but it’s significant that national song books were certainly considered worth keeping. Gal, in turn, included some of the prominent titles in his listing.
Thus, Gal’s catalogue is another reminder to us that the history of music claimed from Stationers’ Hall under legal deposit in the Georgian era, actually and actively continues beyond the Georgian era, for the material has already been curated by musicologists and bibliographers prior to our own generation. In St Andrews, Cedric Thorpe Davie took an active interest, whilst Henry George Farmer was involved in curating the University of Glasgow collection.
Meanwhile, in connection with the current Claimed From Stationers’ Hall network research, the priority is to establish which volumes – formerly in the Reid School of Music cupboards, but now in the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections – were received under legal deposit. Two spread-sheet listings enable us to examine the contents of different volumes, by volume:-
Where publication dates are not given in the spread-sheet, they can be looked up in Copac, and even if there are no decisive dates, then their presence in other legal deposit collections will suggest that these copies arrived by the same route. If music predates 1818, then works can be looked up in Michael Kassler’s Music Entries at Stationers’ Hall, 1710-1818, from Lists prepared for William Hawes, D. W. Krummel and Alan Tyson. (Click here for Copac entry.)
Essentially, the first task is to ascertain which volumes contain legal deposit music, and then to look not only at what survives, but whether there are any patterns to be discerned. In terms of musicological, book, library or cultural history, the question today is not whether the music was ‘degenerate’ or in ‘bad taste’, but to ask ourselves what it tells us about music reception and curation in its own and subsequent eras.
Postscript: as an interesting twist in the world of library and book history, my own copy of Gal’s catalogue was purchased secondhand – a withdrawn copy from a university library where the music department closed a few years ago. What goes around, comes around, as they say!
Could you use a couple of absolutely miniscule videos to tell people about the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall research network?
Educationalists don’t entirely agree with the concept of learning styles these days, but in my librarian-as-educationalist capacity I have learned that people do value having access to a variety of formats when it comes to learning about new stuff. The other day, I was experimenting with a newly-discovered facility for creating very short animated videos. (Yes, I spend my weekends in odd ways.)
I can see potential uses for Biteable.com, but the major hurdle is deciding which template to use. Although you start by deciding the purpose of your video, it isn’t immediately apparent how many screens each template offers you, nor what the images are going to look like! Maybe it’s because I was playing around with the free version.
[PS a few days later – I now know that starting a video from scratch means you get to choose how many frames to use, and you can also choose which templates to use, though you lose the chirpy little animated people. Moreover, you can upload your own music. THAT makes things much more fun!]
Anyway, my playful Sunday evening resulted in two short videos about the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall network.
Next came Out of the Stacks, which is about the repertoire itself, and its value. Trust me, the videoclip is as short as can be and takes only seconds to view! I managed to get my own images into this one, which was a bonus.
I’ve a feeling I can only create a few videoclips a month for free, so you have my assurance I won’t be cluttering this blog with Biteable videos!
This is a London event organised by one of the groups of the professional organisation that I belong to, CILIP. I’m taking the liberty of sharing details in case you know any librarians interested in attending.
“CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group (RBSCG) is pleased to be able to offer training on the cataloguing of rare music.
Date: Monday, 4 June 2018
Time: 10am – 4.30pm
Venue: The British Library
Cost: £50 (+ VAT) for CILIP members / £60 (+ VAT) for non-members
When is a sinfonia not a symphony? What is a trio sonata? When was this piece of music published?
This rare materials training day will introduce participants to issues specific to music publications, in the context of RDA (Resource Description & Access) and DCRM(M) – Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Music). You will be shown how to recognise and describe:
different score formats
types of notation
medium of performance
musical genres and forms
There will also be guidance on:
production methods, publishers’ plate numbers, and ways of dating music publications
the MARC music format and the use of MARC tags for describing music
when and how to create music preferred titles
The training is intended for those new to music or early music cataloguing but with some experience of AACR2 and/or RDA. The trainers will be the British Library’s Caroline Shaw (Music Cataloguing Team Manager) and Iris O’Brien (Early Printed Collections Cataloguing Team Manager).
Tea and coffee will be provided but attendees will need to make their own arrangements for lunch.”
To read the May 2018 Newsletter, click here. It’s not just about the workshop – there’s quite a bit more! If you have any impactful ideas or suggestions for activities or other avenues to explore, please do get in touch.
You may have wondered why our latest exhibition, in and around the Anderson Room, celebrating the work of female composers has the odd title of “Not worth a mention“. The idea for the exhibition came about through a chance conversation with a music librarian at another Legal Deposit library. Looking for some music that had been entered at Stationer’s Hall to show a researcher, the first score he plucked from the shelf had a piece by a little known nineteenth century composer, a Miss Heward. Researcher was delighted and wondered if the library had anything else by her. Librarian went confidently to the catalogue, and was puzzled to discover that there was NOTHING by Miss Heward, not even the piece he held in his hand. Perhaps it had been missed out of the electronic catalogue during the migration from cards? But no, there was no evidence of it…
Image from http://www.saint-andrews.info/features.html
Tweeted today! “At one point in the early 20th century, the #LegalDepositMusic@StAndrewsUniLib was in a doocot (dovecot) – would it be the one at 46 South Street, I wonder?”
— StationersHall Music (@ClaimedStatHall) April 18, 2018
I’ve been writing up notes from our March workshop. Surveying the list of unlikely places for music to be kept, I think St Andrews gets the prize for the unlikeliest – not in an attic or tower, nor in piles on the floor, but in a dovecot, of all places! And I think this is it … at the School of Divinity, St Mary’s College, in the University of St Andrews. Please correct me if I’m wrong!
I have a new book that I need to start reading: David J Golby, Instrumental Teaching in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Routledge, 2016 ) – originally an Ashgate imprint, 2004.
Why not grab a coffee, and settle down to enjoy a good read?
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 