10 July 2014
It Was Fifty Years Ago Today...
July 10th marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ third LP, A Hard Day’s Night. The LP was conceived as a soundtrack to the film of the same name, directed by Richard Lester, which had its UK premiere on July 6th and featured the first seven songs from the album in full.
The success of both the film and the album cemented the band’s status as a transatlantic, if not global, phenomenon. A Hard Day’s Night was the first Beatles LP to consist entirely of self-penned songs and many consider it (and the title track in particular) to mark the beginning of the band’s most productive and exciting period of creativity.
July 10th 1964 also saw the release of the title track as a seven-inch single, with Things We Said Today appearing as the B-side. The song A Hard Day’s Night is famous both for its memorable opening chord and for its unusual title. The phrase ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was believed to have come from an exhausted Ringo Starr, following a long day of filming on March 19th 1964 whereas, in fact, John Lennon had previously used it in his book, John Lennon In His Own Write. Lennon is said to have regarded this as a coincidence, affectionately referring to Starr’s utterance as a ‘Ringoism’. The phrase became popular within the group and Lester adopted it as the title of his film in mid-April, thus sparking off a friendly competition between Lennon and Paul McCartney as to who could come up with the title song.
On this occasion it was Lennon who got there first. He wrote the song very quickly; scribbling the lyrics on the back of his son’s birthday card (Julian Lennon had turned one the previous week). This birthday card has been on loan to the British Library for some time and is on display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery at The British Library. The fact that the lyrics were written on the back of a birthday card is significant, for it suggests that the words came to Lennon so quickly that he wrote them down on whatever happened to be close to hand.
For those who study them, handwritten first drafts of song lyrics or poems have a special quality, in that they appear to record for posterity the instances of those initial creative sparks. Moreover, it could be argued that the more ephemeral the item on which the lines have been written, the closer the item seems to be to that now long-gone moment of inspiration. When we study the handwritten lyrics to A Hard Day’s Night, it is easy to imagine Lennon scribbling them down so as not to forget them.
Visitors to the British Library will notice that Lennon made an important revision to this initial draft. On the morning of April 16th (the day the song was recorded), Maureen Cleave, Evening Standard journalist and friend of The Beatles, picked Lennon up in a taxi and took him to the Abbey Road studios. Cleave recalls suggesting that Lennon reconsider the line ‘I find my tiredness is through’. Lennon, borrowing Cleave’s pen, crossed out the line and wrote ‘I find the things that you do’ in its place.
As has been the case with so many Beatles songs, A Hard Day’s Night has spawned an astonishing range of cover versions including, famously, Peter Sellers’s version from 1965 in which the actor and comedian recites the lyrics while impersonating Lawrence Olivier’s performance of William Shakespeare’s Richard III.
A Hard Day’s Night was the third Beatles single to go straight to Number One in the charts one week after release and by July 23rd had sold 800,000 before going on to become the group’s fourth million-selling single in the UK. The album entered the album chart at Number One and sold 600,000 copies in Britain by the end of the year.
Andy Linehan & David Fitzpatrick
29 May 2014
Trouvère songs online
An exciting new addition to our Digitised Manuscripts website is a little anthology written in the thirteenth century which combines sacred Latin songs with French courtly lyrics. The vast majority of the British Library's medieval music manuscripts are connected with the church, but manuscripts such as this remind us that the division between sacred and secular should not always be taken for granted in the Middle Ages.
Egerton MS 274 was probably originally written in the 1260s for use in private devotion. The first section begins with an initial letter 'A' depicting the Virgin and Child with a tonsured figure in a grey robe kneeling before them. By zooming into the image (at this link) it is just possible to make out that the man is holding a tiny book – about the size of this manuscript, the pages of which measure only 15 x 10 cm. Probably this is intended as a representation of Philip the Chancellor of Notre Dame in Paris, since the first section of the manuscript consists of 28 Latin songs which he composed, several of which are here set in two-part polyphony.
O maria virginei flos, two-voice setting of verse by Philip the Chancellor
A possible clue to the identity of the first owner of this manuscript is found a few pages later, with a charming picture of an ape riding on horseback: his coat of arms is that of the Torote family, which included many prominent churchmen in the later thirteenth century, one of whom might have inspired this back-handed attention.
As well as Philip the Chancellor's poems, the anthology includes 18 French songs of the trouvères, the northern French equivalents of the troubadours in the south. Curiously, and rather frustratingly, eleven of these songs have been defaced by a later owner: the first stanza of each poem has been erased, with a new Latin text written over the French words and usually a new melody too: all that remains is the initial letter, and the later verses of the French text, written without music on the following pages.
a Latin responsory chant written over a deleted trouvère song
The rest of the book includes some Latin narrative poems without music as well as substantial amounts of liturgical music, all in Latin and much of it added at around the time the French texts were defaced. These additions and alterations have the effect of making the book exclusively religious in content, and mainly liturgical in purpose. There is an interesting collection of sequences and other types of music used in church processions, some of them not known from elsewhere. At the end of the volume are a few pages written with German-style notation, instead of the square notes found earlier on.
chants for the ceremony of foot-washing on Maundy Thursday
Egerton MS 274 has already been the subject of several articles and a Ph.D. thesis, but much remains to be explored in this eclectic manuscript. We will be publishing several more medieval music manuscripts on Digitised Manuscripts over the next few months, so please keep an eye on this blog for future updates.
01 May 2014
Preserving the legacy of Muriel Herbert
One of the most rewarding aspects of working in the British Library's Music department is having the opportunity to preserve music which could otherwise have been lost to the world. It is even more rewarding when that music turns out to be exceedingly good. The songs of British composer Muriel Herbert are just such a case in point.
Muriel Herbert died 30 years ago today, at the age of 86, leaving behind almost 100 songs and a small number of pieces for violin and piano. She had been born in Sheffield in 1897 and grew up in Liverpool, and in 1917 won a composition scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music with Charles Stanford. After leaving the Royal College she remained in London, composing, teaching and giving recitals. She met the composer Roger Quilter, who recommended her to the publisher Augener, and during the 1920s she had several songs published by Augener and Elkin.
The poets whose words Herbert chose to set ranged from the eighth-century Alcuin of York to James Joyce, and also included, among many others, Robert Herrick, Lord Byron, Christina Rossetti and Thomas Hardy. She seems to have been particularly inspired by James Joyce's poetry, setting four of his poems. She performed two of them, ‘I Hear an Army Charging’ and ‘Lean out of the Window’, in Paris for Joyce himself.
Herbert's performances of her own music appear to have been well received. This undated cutting relates to a recital she gave at the Sandon Music Room in Liverpool, where she sang and accompanied herself on the piano.
Herbert also gave several broadcast recitals on BBC radio, including this recital in 1938. Sadly, no recordings of any of Herbert's recitals appear to have survived.
Herbert had continued to compose throughout the 1920s, but then came marriage and motherhood, and subsequently the breakdown of her marriage, and she found less time for composition. She moved with her two children to Welwyn Garden City, where she became a respected music teacher. At her death, most of her works remained unpublished, preserved only in her neatly-written autograph manuscripts, in most cases in a single copy.
Muriel Herbert's younger daughter, the writer Claire Tomalin, was determined that the music should be preserved. As she later wrote in the Guardian, she searched out every scrap of music she could find and bundled all the manuscripts into folders. Although no one seemed interested initially, a BBC producer, Bill Lloyd, who had been taught by Herbert, suggested recording some of the songs. The musicologist Valerie Langfield also gave help and encouragement, and in 2009 the premiere recording was issued to great acclaim by Linn Records with singers James Gilchrist and Ailish Tynan and pianist David Owen Norris. You can hear clips from these songs on Linn's website, and listen to Claire Tomalin talking about her mother's music on Woman's Hour in 2009 on the BBC website.
We were delighted when Ms Tomalin decided to present the much-treasured collection of music manuscripts to the British Library. When we received them, some of the manuscripts were in a fragile state, fraying around the edges and in need of conservation. They have now been catalogued, conserved and bound into sturdy volumes to prevent further damage.
Thirty years on from Muriel Herbert's death, it seems that her legacy is rather more secure; other recordings and performances are in the pipeline, some of her unpublished songs have been printed for the first time and her autograph manuscripts are now available for present and future generations of performers and researchers to explore at the British Library, where they have the collection number MS Mus. 1724.
British Music at the British Library: two free events on 10 May
On Saturday 10 May 2014 in the Foyle Suite, British Library Centre for Conservation there will be two free events to celebrate the outstanding British music collections at the British Library.
The Full English Archive Open Day
From 10.30 to 1.30, the Full English Archive Open Day will give access to some of the original manuscript folksong transcriptions of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger, with illustrated talks about the early folk revival and the collectors. This presentation forms part of the Full English project, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and developed by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). For the first time 19 of the most significant manuscript collections of folk music, song and dance amassed in England during the folk revival of early 20th century are available to browse and search online. Also find out how The Full English digital archive works and can be used, and learn about the project’s development from author and folklorist Steve Roud and EFDSS Library Director Malcolm Taylor OBE.
This event is supported by the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Further information:
The British Music Society Annual Lecture:
'Sir John Barbirolli: British Music's Cockney Emissary'
In the afternoon(starting at 2.30), join Dr Raymond Holden, the Sir John Barbirolli Lecturer in Music at the Royal Academy of Music, for a talk about 'Sir John Barbirolli: British Music's Cockney Emissary'. Dr Holden will use recordings, marked scores and other performance artefacts to chart the role of Sir John Barbirolli as British Music's leading international advocate. This presentation will be the Annual Lecture of the British Music Society. Material from both the Royal Academy of Music and the British Library will be on display. The lecture will start at 2.30pm and will be presented in two 50-minute halves with a short break.
This event is supported by the British Music Society. Further information: http://www.britishmusicsociety.com/bms-events/
Admission to both events is free, but to reserve a seat please book free tickets in advance through the British Library Box Office:
Full English: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event159831.html
Barbirolli: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event159832.html
24 April 2014
Mozart Manuscripts Online
250 years ago, on 23 April 1764, the eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrived in London with his father Leopold, mother Anna Maria, and sister Maria Anna (Nannerl). The visit formed part of an ambitious European tour, in which the Mozart children were presented as musical prodigies in public concerts and to private patrons.
Their visit to London, which would last for 15 months, has special significance for the British Library, since Mozart may be counted as the first in an illustrious line of composers to have presented manuscripts to the Library. This event took place during the course of the family's visit to the British Museum, in July 1765. On that occasion, Mozart deposited a copy of his first sacred composition (and only setting of an English text), God is our Refuge, written with the assistance of his father Leopold, together with copies of two sets of keyboard sonatas published the previous year in Paris.
Since that time, the Library has maintained a long tradition of collecting printed and manuscript sources for Mozart’s music, cultivated both under its previous guise as part of the British Museum and in its present incarnation as an autonomous library based at St. Pancras.
The Library’s Mozart holdings have therefore grown apace, with items acquired individually from dealers and at auction, via the legal deposit of music published in the UK, and as part of larger collections – notably those amassed by Vincent Novello, Edward Meyerstein, and Stefan Zweig.
The most spectacular single acquisition came in 1986, with the donation by Stefan Zweig’s heirs of his collection of musical and literary autographs, which contained among other treasures twelve Mozart manuscripts. Most notable among these is the thematic catalogue ('Verzeichnüss aller meine Werke vom Monath febrario 1784 . . .') that Mozart maintained from 1784 till his death in 1791, in which he noted - among other details - the date, title and first few bars of music for each work. In 2006, this rich and revealing document became the first of the Library’s Mozart sources to be digitised and was made available via the Turning the Pages website to mark the composer’s 250th anniversary. It is also available as an e-book and via the Library's Digitised Manuscripts portal.
The Library has now digitised the remaining Mozart autograph manuscripts in its collection. For ease of reference, we thought it would be helpful to provide the following classified list with a brief title or description of each work and a hyperlink (embedded in the shelfmark) to the digital images. Unless otherwise specified, the manuscripts are full autograph scores of the respective works.
For anyone curious to explore a little further, click on the Köchel numbers for links to the relevant entries in Wikipedia (where available), where you'll also find links to public domain recordings and editions available from the Neue Mozart Ausgabe and the International Music Score Library Project. Using these resources will make it possible to compare Mozart’s notation with various editions, or to follow the composer’s score while listening to a recording in the comfort of your own home.
Chamber music
Minuet in F (K. 168a): Add MS 47861a, f. 10v (lower portion of divided leaf) and MS Mus. 1040, f. 1v (upper portion of divided leaf)
String Quartet in B flat (K. 172): Add MS 31749
String Quartet in D minor (K. 173), movement IV only: Zweig MS 52
String Quartet in G major (K. 387): Add MS 37763, ff. 1r-13v
String Quartet in D minor (K. 421): Add MS 37763, ff. 14r-22r
String Quartet in E flat major (K. 428): Add MS 37763, ff. 34r-44r
String Quartet in B flat major Hunt (K. 458): Add MS 37763, ff. 23r-32v
String Quartet in A major (K. 464): Add MS 37763, ff. 45r-56r
String Quartet in C major Dissonance (K. 465): Add MS 37763, ff. 57r-68r
String Quartet in D major (K. 499), Hoffmeister: Add MS 37764
String Quintet in C minor (K. 516b): Add MS 31748
String Quartet in D major (K. 575): Add MS 37765, ff. 1r-14v
String Quartet in B flat major (K. 589): Add MS 37765, ff. 29r-44v
String Quartet in D minor (K. 590): Add MS 37765, ff. 15r-28v
String Quintet in E flat (K. 614): Zweig MS 60
Adagio and Rondo in C minor/major for armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello (K. 617): Zweig MS 61
Keyboard music (with or without accompaniment)
Minuet no. 3 and trio no. 6 of a set of dances for orchestra, arranged for piano (K. 176): Add MS 14396, f. 13r-13v
Sonata in B flat for piano duet (K. 358/186c): Add MS 14396, ff. 21v-29v
Sonata for violin and piano in F (K. 377/374e): Zweig MS 53
Rondo for keyboard and orchestra in A (K. 386), fragment: Add MS 32181, ff. 250-252
Leaf containing bar 65 to the end of the first movement of the Piano Sonata in B flat (K. 570): Add MS 47861a, ff. 13-13v
Orchestral music
March for orchestra in C (K. 408, no. 1/383e): Zweig MS 54
Concerto for horn and orchestra in E flat (K. 447): Zweig MS 55
Fugue in C minor (K. 546), in an arrangement for string orchestra: Add MS 28966
Five contredanses for flute, strings (2 violins, cello and bass) and drum (K. 609): Zweig MS 59
Vocal music
Chorus, 'God is our Refuge', K. 20: K.10.a.17.(3.)
Song ‘Das Veilchen’, for voice and piano (K. 476): Zweig MS 56
Aria ‘Non so più cosa son’ from Le nozze di Figaro (K. 492, no. 6), draft: Zweig MS 57
‘Difficile lectu mihi Mars’, three-part vocal canon (K. 559): Zweig MS 58
'O du eselhafter Peierl’, four-part vocal canon (K. 560a/559a): Zweig MS 58
Duettino ‘Deh prendi un dolce amplesso’ from La clemenza di Tito (K. 621, no. 3): Zweig MS 62
Cadenza to the second movement (Andante) of a Keyboard Concerto by Ignaz von Beecke (K. 626a, Anh. K): MS Mus. 1040, f. 10r (upper portion of divided leaf: presented here with the lower portion, Add MS 47861a)
Cadenza to the first movement (Allegro maestoso) of the Keyboard Concerto K. 40, arranged from sonata movements by Honauer, Eckard and C.P.E. Bach: Add MS 47861a, f. 10r (lower portion of divided leaf)
Recitative and aria, "Giunse alfin il momento" and "Al desio di chi t'avora" from Le nozze di Figaro (K. 492): Add MS 14396, ff. 15r-21v (copyist's score, with autograph cadenza on f. 21v)
Copies in Mozart’s hand
Georg Reutter, ‘De Profundis’, in four parts, with organ accompaniment, in score, copied by Mozart, K. 93 / Anh. A 22: Add MS 31748, f. 1
Johann Michael Haydn, Ave Maria in F (for Advent or the Annunciation), for 4 voices with basso continuo and violins (KV3 Anh. 109VI, no. 14, KV6 Anh. A 14): Add MS 41633, f. 60-63
Documents
Thematic catalogue, 'Verzeichnüss aller meine Werke vom Monath febrario 1784 . . .': Zweig MS 63
Letter to Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, 5 November 1777: Zweig MS 64
Letter to Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, 28 February 1778: Zweig MS 65
Letter to Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, 23 December 1778: Zweig MS 66
Letter to Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, 10 May [1779]: Zweig MS 67
Letter to Anton Klein; Vienna, 21 May 1785: Zweig MS 68
Contract of marriage between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constanze Weber, 3 August 1782: Zweig MS 69
07 April 2014
A Big Data History of Music
We are delighted to announce that the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has awarded Royal Holloway, University of London and the British Library just over £79,000 towards a research project exploring centuries' worth of documentation of printed and manuscript music. This collaboration between Royal Holloway and the British Library is bringing together for the first time the world's biggest datasets about published sheet music, music manuscripts and classical concerts (in excess of 5 million records) for statistical analysis, manipulation and visualisation and will, it is to be hoped, provide a paradigm shift in how music history is researched.
Data from seven existing databases and catalogues is being used as the basis of this project. These datasets (two of which are not currently available online) include: the British Library's catalogues of printed and manuscript music; the bibliographies created by Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) that list European music printed 1500-1800 and music manuscripts in European libraries; and the RISM UK Music Manuscripts Database and the Concert Programmes Project database. These catalogues and databases are already essential finding tools for researchers of music history and musicology, plus many scholars of performance studies and cultural history. However, until now it has not been possible to analyse these rich collections of data for large-scale trends in the dissemination of music, the popularity of specific composers, or the development of musical taste.
Our project will align and combine the seven datasets so that they can be analysed as big data. Key areas of the British Library data are being enriched and cleaned in order that they can be successfully aligned with the other datasets. The project team will then pilot ways in which the combined dataset can be analysed with approaches taken from the study of big data. By analysing the frequency, spread and distribution of specific compositions and composers' outputs, the project will challenge current thinking about how music was transmitted across borders, how musical taste developed, and how certain composers or repertories were canonised as carrying aesthetic value. The results of this research will be disseminated via a symposium held at the British Library, to which academics and non-academics will be invited. Finally, the data will be made available as an open dataset for researchers to undertake big data research across multiple disciplines.
The project is being funded under the £4 million ‘Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities: Big Data Research’ funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council with support from the Economic and Social Research Council. It is being led by Dr Stephen Rose, Senior Lecturer in Music at Royal Holloway, with Dr Sandra Tuppen, Curator of Music Manuscripts at the British Library, as Co-Investigator, and is due to be completed by the end of March 2015. For further information, please contact [email protected].
11 March 2014
Plainsong and Medieval Music Study Day at the British Library
The British Library is delighted to host this year's Annual Study Day of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, on Saturday 29 March 2014.
Open to all with free admission, this day will provide a major showcase of some of the important and exciting work currently being undertaken on the British Library's important collections of medieval and Renaissance music manuscripts.
The first session of the morning, starting at 10.30, will be devoted to Tudor manuscripts. David Fallows will present some of the exciting new discoveries he has recently made about the famous Henry VIII Book (Add. MS 31922, shown above). Thomas Neal will talk about Royal MS 8 G.vii, A Burgundian manuscript in early Tudor England, and Louise McInnes will speak about the Windsor carol book (Egerton MS 3307).
Before lunch, four speakers from the Old Hispanic Office Project at the University of Bristol will discuss various aspects of the liturgy and chant of the Iberian Peninsula in the early medieval period. Surprisingly, one of the largest collections of early Spanish chant manuscripts is found in the British Library, and this presentation by Emma Hornby, Elsa De Luca, Raquel Rojo Carrillo and Kati Ihnat will centre on some of these manuscripts.
In the afternoon, William Flynn will talk about an important but little-studied British Library manuscript of Hildegard of Bingen's writings, and two leading liturgical experts, Magnus Williamson and Matthew Cheung Salisbury, will give presentations about some of the sources of the Sarum Rite to be found in the Library's collections.
The day will conclude with an opportunity to see some of the manuscripts under discussion earlier in the day. Doors open at 10 for a prompt 10.30 start, and the event will finish by 4.30. The Study Day will take place in the Foyle Suite at the British Library Centre for Conservation, towards the back of the main Library building at 96 Euston Road. Lunch will be available in the Library's restaurant and café.
Attendance is limited to 60 people, and anyone wishing to attend is asked to register your intention to attend here: http://doodle.com/2que4gxew7rzhv6e.
For further details, and to download the programme for the day, please visit the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society website at www.plainsong.org.uk. Founded in 1888, the PMMS exists to promote the performance and study of liturgical chant and medieval polyphony, through the publication of editions, facsimiles and scholarly articles, and through educational and liaison events. This Study Day will also include the Annual General Meeting of the Society. New members are always welcome, and can join on the day. Membership includes a subscription to the Society’s twice-yearly journal and discounts on many of the Society's publications.
31 January 2014
A song in praise of music: Schubert’s ‘An die Musik’
This is the first in a new series of blog posts highlighting some of the British Library’s music treasures. We’ll be focusing in each post on a particular item or collection and looking at the story behind it. In the spotlight today are Franz Schubert, born on this day in 1797, and his exquisite song ‘An die Musik’ (‘To Music’).
Schubert composed more than 600 songs in his short life, the first at the age of 14 and the last shortly before his death, aged 31, in November 1828. ‘An die Musik’, which Schubert wrote in 1817, is one of his most famous songs, popular both for its beautiful melody and its lyrics - penned by Schubert's near namesake, Franz von Schober - about the power of music to “kindle the heart to warm love” and carry us into a better world.
Here is a classic recording of the song made for Decca by Kathleen Ferrier, contralto, and Phyllis Spurr, piano, in 1949 (British Library Shelfmark 1CS0042998):
Schubert wrote two versions of the song, and his autograph manuscript of the second version is now held by the British Library. The manuscript was formerly owned by the Austrian writer and collector Stefan Zweig, and Zweig’s delight at acquiring the autograph of this famous song is evident from his card catalogue, in which he described it as a crowning piece in the art of song and also graphically extraordinarily beautiful.
Schubert wrote out the music in brown ink on just one side of a single leaf of manuscript paper and signed it ‘Franz Schubert m[anu propr]ia’ (signed with one’s own hand). The leaf seems originally to have formed part of someone’s manuscript album, but it is not known where or for whom Schubert wrote the music out. The leaf was later removed from the album and came into the possession of a German violinist, Ludwig Landsberg, who had it mounted in a pink folder, along with a lithographed portrait of Schubert, and who presented the assemblage to the wife of the French Ambassador in 1852.
The manuscript then passed through the hands of a German conductor, Siegfried Ochs, before being acquired in 1940 by Stefan Zweig from the music seller Otto Haas. The manuscript was loaned to the British Library in 1981 and presented outright to the Library in 1986 by Stefan Zweig’s heirs, as part of the magnificent Zweig Music Collection. The manuscript has just been digitised and made available on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts website. The presentation folder and portrait, a lithograph made by Josef Teltscher in 1826 and published shortly after Schubert's death, have also been digitised.
Music blog recent posts
- Harriet Cohen and Astra Desmond: introducing two newly catalogued archives
- Restoring access to the British Library’s Music Collections (January 2024)
- Beethoven and Zweig
- Beethoven exhibition update: some new arrivals from Berlin
- Conserving creativity – the case of Beethoven’s ‘Kafka’ sketch miscellany
- Digitised Manuscripts from the Royal Music Library
- Celebrating Beethoven: a new online exhibition on Discovering Music
- Ralph Vaughan Williams in the Boosey & Hawkes Archive
- Digitising Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius at the Birmingham Oratory
- Digitised Music Manuscripts
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