Mysteries

I was just tidying up some loose ends in the chapter I’ve been writing. There was a music professor called John Greig who looked after things at Edinburgh University in between Reid Professors. Friedrich Rieck got the job – Greig didn’t. Within a decade the press was reporting his taking up an organist post in London. Then acting as an external examiner for the London College of Music, and finally principal of his own college – the British College of Music – in 1908. He died within a couple of years of opening it, having funded it largely out of his own pocket, but with a handful of shareholders holding a tiny fraction of the shares.

A contemporary magazine said it was just a money-spinning exercise. Okay, but it did advertise from time to time, notwithstanding Greig’s demise, so it clearly continued at least a little while. I also found reference in an Australian source, suggesting it was went on being a money-spinner for a while.

Here’s the thing: on the face of it, it appears still to be offering music exams to this day. I found reference to a modern professor in the UK, who offers masterclasses to students wishing to take ‘British College of Music exams’; there’s even a masterclass coming up in Ochanomizu, Japan this month (February 2023). However, I suspect that the professor actually means ‘exams offered by British music colleges’ rather than an institution by that name. Capital letters and word order make such a difference!

I don’t really mind. It has absolutely nothing to do with my research, and I stopped before I fell any further down the Alice-in-Wonderland-type rabbit hole. Anyway, I don’t need to mention the institution in a book about Scottish music publishers!