This week, I turned the internet inside out trying to find a copy of a piano piece by Rose Smith, which seems only to be available in one or two libraries. Clearly, I need to update Zotero, because when I eventually found this very run-of-the-mill piece of salon music ….
It was in my own collection. Oops!
I only needed it to see which address it had been published from. Setting it alongside another similar piece by Smith, with a later Mozart Allan address, it serves as a reminder that you can’t assume something was first published from the address on a particular copy. Other music listed on a later-printed copy may give you a clue that it is from an earlier era. Indeed, the apparently ‘later’ piece has an illustration which simply didn’t look the right era for the publication address.
Now, as for the other music listed, which really does appear no longer to survive … anywhere at all … !
More interestingly, the stylistic difference between these piano pieces and Smith’s later self-published songs is quite significant. But more about that another day.
