It appears both my husband and I are giving presentations in a fortnight’s time!
The evening of Tuesday 7th , Hugh is talking on Zoom about Newcastle trolleybuses, to an enthusiasts’ group in Turin.* (Sadly for him, he’s sitting in Glasgow, not Turin, to do it!)
Less than 24 hours after that, I shall be giving a talk about a couple of Mozart Allan Scottish songbooks, in the Gifford Room (at the University of St Andrews’ Laidlaw Centre) on Weds 8th at 2.30 pm.
The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song: compiling a book with the 1951 Festival of Britain in mind
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/assets/university/music-centre/documents/music-events.pdf
The Glories of Scotland is a ‘snapshot in time’, as I shall explain. It has connections with another contemporary Mozart Allan title, and also with the Festival of Britain. Admittedly, it doesn’t look particularly special to our modern eyes, but it indirectly tells us a lot about postwar British culture.
As it happens, I’m giving a lecture to the historians later in November, in connection with my Ketelbey Fellowship. But I’ll be taking a very different tack that time. The music talk on 8 November is about one – okay, two books, whilst the history one covers half a century. And it feels as though, whilst I’ll be introducing history to the music lovers, I’ll be sharing music history with the historians – looking at how contemporary trends were reflected in what Scottish music publishers produced.
I’ve just finished writing my music talk. On Wednesday, I made a list of all the images I’d need for the PowerPoint, and I had intended on Thursday to see which pictures I had already (as opposed to those I needed to scan), draft the Ppt and do some reading.
However, I didn’t bargain on Storm Babet. Suffice to say, I got a bus home to Glasgow and spent the afternoon and evening scanning and finishing the slides. No reading got done, but at least the talk and slides are all sorted. Well, apart from timing it …
Postscript. Thankfully, the postie’s delivery of one particular rarity didn’t get drenched in the rain last week. It was only 2/6 in 1950 – I dreaded it getting damaged. Especially as I’m talking about the diaspora intentions of the publisher, and this particular copy comes from France!
* For Hugh’s talk, visit the ATTS Torino Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/attstorino
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 