Q. Name a Scottish Song Collector who Features in Both my Books!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The Songs of Scotland edited by George Farquhar Graham et al. Title page
Songs of Scotland

I couldn’t find a nice anniversary for yesterday, but I certainly have one for today, 28th December.

Journo, music critic, and Scottish song compiler George Farquhar Graham (1789-1867) was the editor of John Muir Wood’s long-lived song collection, Songs of Scotland, first published in 1848.  As such, he featured heavily in my Our Ancient National Airs.  But the book enjoyed an afterlife as one of Bayley and Ferguson’s handsome reprints – The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland  – thus getting a mention in A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity, too.

Where’s all this going? Well, today is Graham’s 236th birthday – ‘Many happy returns,  Sir!’

The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland

Why might William Moodie’s Miniature Scottish Song Book be Interesting?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I blogged for the Whittaker Library this morning! It’s about William Moodie’s little book, Our Native Songs. Moodie features in the book that I’ve just finished writing, so I got a bit excited about this little songbook, even though it wasn’t the context in which I had been writing about him before. All the same, it has his words in the Preface, and it has a Glasgow connection, so it was lovely to handle it whilst I catalogued and blogged about it. (And now, I won’t be able to resist investigating the publisher, will I?!)

Read my library blogpost here:-

William Moodie and Glasgow’s ‘Normal School’

Moodie’s original collection as reviewed in The Stirling Observer, August 1886. (British Newspaper Archive)

(I love the idea that one could whip this tiny book out of one’s pocket if one was in company and suddenly needed the words of a song!)

A Forgotten Victorian Lady Organist

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I took a 2-volume book of part-songs home over Christmas, in connection with my Scottish music publishers research.

Our heroine’s church in Paisley

Just two women had contributed to the collection. Researching one of them occupied much of last week’s annual leave! But I ended up with a respectable article for a local newsletter. Not peer-reviewed, not likely to hit the headlines, but it got all my findings sorted into a narrative which I can draw upon again later. And I enjoyed my week!

Moreover, I’ve just managed to get her a mention in Chapter 4 of my book. Her brother would think this most audacious! When she got a presentation, he stood up and accepted it for her … because …..

Fearing being considered a strong-minded female!

What does St Andrews have in common with Vanity Fair?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve just written a blogpost about one of the Copyright Music borrowers, to go on the Eighteenth-Century Arts Education Research Network blog.  It’s not published yet – but won’t be long.  Watch this space!  We’re looking at mid-September.