As Black History Month draws to a close, we’re showcasing the achievements of virtuoso violinist George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860). The son of a West Indian father and a European mother, he was born in Biala, Poland. At the tender age of ten, he made his debut as a violinist at the Concert Spirituel in Paris. Then followed a move to England, where the young prodigy was marketed as the “son of an African Prince”.

Pencil and watercolour portrait of Bridgetower. Copyright © The British Museum 1876-7-8-2379

In December 1789, Bridgetower performed at the Assembly Rooms in Bath to much acclaim. 550 guests, among them King George III, attended his first concert. During the next decade, he went on to play at many prestigious London venues, appearing alongside Haydn at Salomon’s series and elsewhere.

From 1795 to 1809, Bridgetower was first violinist in George III’s private orchestra. However, in 1802, he obtained leave to visit his mother in Dresden where he gave concerts on 24 July 1802 and 18 March 1803. Then followed a trip to Vienna in April 1803. Here he was introduced to Beethoven, who had already begun sketching the first two movements of what was to become the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in A, opus 47, otherwise known as the ‘Kreutzer’ sonata.

First edition of the Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata, opus 47. British Library Hirsch IV.287

The work was first performed at a concert given by Bridgetower at the Augarten-Halle in Vienna on 24 May 1803. Beethoven himself played the piano part, and he was evidently pleased with the performance, going on to present Bridgetower with his tuning fork, which now forms part of our extensive music collections.

Beethoven’s tuning fork, which was presented to Bridgetower following the premiere of the Kreutzer sonata. British Library Add. MS 71148A and B 

Back in London, Bridgetower was elected to the Royal Society of Musicians in London on 4 October 1807, and in June 1811 took the degree of B.Mus. at Cambridge. He played in the Philharmonic Society’s first season in 1813, leading the performance of Beethoven’s ‘Quintett’. He was also recommended for membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1817.

Recommendation for membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1817). British Library RPS MS 315, f.4

The end of Bridgetower’s life is rather mysterious. He was rumoured to have died in 1850, but his death certificate shows that “George Polegreen Bridgetower, Gentleman” died at 8 Victory Cottages, a small back street in Peckham, on 29 February 1860.

Bridgetower’s legacy was remarkable. He clearly transcended his childhood celebrity to become a respected member of London’s musical community. However, his achievements extended beyond the purely musical, illustrating both the possibility to transform and transcend personal circumstances.

An extended article on Bridgetower by Dr Mike Phillips can be found here.

One of the great treasures in the British Library’s extensive music collections is featured in the first instalment of the series ‘Treasures of the British Library’ (Sky Arts, Tuesday 18 October at 9pm).  Beethoven’s Pastoral sketchbook (shelfmark Add. MS 31766) was purchased by the Library in 1880.  It contains a wealth of musical material associated with the Pastoral symphony, one of Beethoven’s best-loved works and a staple of the orchestral repertory. 

The sketchbook offers a fascinating insight into the composer’s creative mind as he worked on the symphony during the course of 1808.  An early title for the symphony, given on the first page of the sketchbook, was ‘Sinfonie Caracteristica oder Errinerungen an das Landleben’ (‘Characteristic symphony or Remembrances of country life’):

While the symphony includes imitations of bird calls, babbling brooks and a thunderstorm, Beethoven stressed that it was not intended as a representation of particular pastoral scenes.  Writing to his publisher Breitfopf in Leipzig, he described it instead as an expression of the feelings evoked by the countryside.  In the sketchbook itself he states that ‘One leaves it to the listener to work out the situations’ (‘Man überlasst es dem zuhören sich selbst die Situationen auszufinden’):

Beethoven is well-known for the chaotic appearance of his musical handwriting, his manuscripts often being full of deletions, amendments and scribbles. The Pastoral sketchbook is no exception.  At first glance, it may seem impossible to decipher the hastily scribbled notation, seemingly applied to the page with little regard for intelligibility or precision.  Look more closely, however, and it becomes clear that the sketches represent a painstaking process of refinement and re-drafting, as each musical idea is developed in relation to the emerging structure for the work as a whole. 

The first page of the sketchbook, discussed with Lord Winston in the first episode of the Sky Arts series, contains the building blocks for the symphony’s lyrical opening melody.  Beethoven described the first movement as ‘Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the countryside’ (‘Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande’).  Each constituent part of the theme is represented here in various permutations, including (from the eighth stave onwards) an outline of the first 40 or so bars. 

The theme is developed further in the following pages, as Beethoven fleshed out the accompanying parts in short score.  One forms the impression of an almost obsessive mind, as the composer repeatedly re-writes fragments of notation in different permutations.

Describing his working method many years later in a letter to his patron and pupil the Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven described how it was important to position a small table next to the piano, so that one learns to ‘pin down immediately the most remote ideas’ (1823).  An idea captured on paper is in no danger of escaping and – unlike some composers – Beethoven was careful to preserve much of his sketch material, not least because they often contained a great detail of material that was not absorbed into the finished work.  Indeed, the need to keep a written record of his thoughts seems to have increased with age and encroaching deafness.  In the last 12 years of his life he also kept a pocket sketchbook with him at all times, allowing him to jot down musical ideas or melodies as they came to him. 

Some 30 volumes of Beethoven’s sketches survive in libraries around the world.  Deciphering and analysing this material has become almost a scientific discipline in itself, and started as long ago as the second half of the 19th century.  The British Library has digitised the Pastoral sketchbook and it is available to view via the Digitised Manuscripts website.  Now anyone can explore the intricacies of a great composer’s working method and marvel at the creativity of a musical genius in full flow. 

 

Further reading

David Wyn Jones, Beethoven: Pastoral Symphony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Douglas Johnson, Alan Tyson and Robert Winter (ed.), The Beethoven Sketchbooks: History, Reconstruction, Inventory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985)

Philip Gossett, ‘Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony: sketches for the first movement’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 27 (1974), p. 248-84.

Alan Tyson, ‘A reconstruction of the Pastoral Symphony Sketchbook (British Museum Add. MS 31766)’, in Beethoven Studies 1 (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 67-96.

 

What was the first Bob Dylan song you ever heard - 'Blowin' in the Wind', 'The Times They are A-Changin', 'Like a  Rolling Stone', or something else entirely?

After the momentous news that the 75-year-old rock legend has won the Nobel Literature Prize, now is a great time both to revisit your old favourites and discover something new.

And with well over a thousand Dylan-related items in our collections, the British Library catalogue is a great place to start. Our latest Bob Dylan acquisition arrived only a few weeks ago in the form of the Bob Dylan ukulele chord songbook (British Library shelfmark E.1080.o) - proof that our music collections are not only about classical music. 

 British Library shelfmark E.1080.o

 

Anton Bruckner died 120 years ago this week (11 October 1896).

A late starter, he only began to compose seriously at the age of 37. Arguably one of the most innovative composers of the second half of the 19th century, he is remembered primarily for his eleven symphonies and sacred compositions.

Johannes Brahms famously had no great love for his contemporary. In a veiled reference to their scale and uniqueness of harmony, he dubbed Bruckner's late works “symphonic boa-constrictors”. By contrast, Richard Wagner effused “I know of only one composer who measures up to Beethoven, and that is Bruckner”.

The affection was mutual. One of Bruckner’s best-known works, the Seventh Symphony, was written between 1881 and 1883 and revised in 1885. On 14 February 1883, however, work on the end of the second movement was interrupted by news of Wagner’s death. The closing bars went on to become Bruckner’s lament on the passing of the “Meister aller Meister”, who he had last seen in summer 1882 at the première of Parsifal in Bayreuth.

Performed by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on 30 December 1884, the première of the Seventh Symphony brought Bruckner the greatest success he had known in his life.  Pictured below is an extract from an early draft of the finale (British Library MS Mus. 1810).

Sketch of the Finale of Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony (British Library MS Mus. 1810) 

The sketch as a whole contains the equivalent of bars 71 to 104. We can learn something of Bruckner's compositional process from this fragment. The music for bars 71 to 92 is notated at twice the speed of the final version, and that corresponding to bars 89 to 92 occurs earlier in the position of 85 to 88.

The manuscript found its way into our collections as a result of the generosity of Oliver Neighbour (1923-2015), one of the outstanding music librarians of his generation. He devoted virtually his entire professional life to the British Library, where his major contribution was to build and develop the collections of printed music. However, “Tim”, as he was invariably known to friends, was also a private collector, assembling a personal collection of music manuscripts during his long life.

With characteristic modesty, he quietly gave this material to the British Library in 2007, saying it consisted of “odd pages or sketches” that would “fill a few gaps”. In fact, Tim’s collection contained some two hundred manuscripts of composers such as Clementi, Donizetti, Berlioz, Puccini, Debussy, Satie, Ravel, Bartók, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Berio, Boulez and Stockhausen, as well as Bruckner. 

It is with gratitude that we showcase this fragment here to celebrate Bruckner’s anniversary.

 

 

Have you ever wanted to know more about the British Library's music collections?

With over 100,000 music manuscripts, 1.6 million items of printed music and 2 million sound recordings, it can be difficult to know where to start.

But that's where our exciting new resource, Discovering Music, comes in.

Taking it's cue from our popular Discovering Literature site, it will provide music lovers with the opportunity to explore the British Library's greatest musical treasures with the help of expertly-curated contextual information and browse-able collection items.

Key composers will be explored and linked to iconic musical works, among them Handel's Messiah, Elgar's Enigma Variations, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Ravel's Bolero and Holst's The Planets.

We'll be releasing the first batch of content in late 2017. In the meantime, we will be posting regular updates on our blog and on Twitter, so stay tuned!

 

 

In July 2016, we announced the exciting news that we'd completed a three-year project to digitise our Handel autograph manuscripts. But how did this come about? And what exactly was involved? In this blog post, we delve deeper into the digitisation process to provide an insight into the practicalities of this fascinating and growing area of our work.

With just over one hundred volumes, British Library Music Collections holds the single largest autograph collection of Handel’s works in the world. The vast majority of these volumes form part of the Royal Music Library and are easily recognisable by their ‘R.M.’ shelfmarks, the most famous being Messiah (R.M.20.f.2).  Aside from Messiah, which had been made available via the British Library’s popular Turning the Pages web pages back in 2008, no autograph Handel manuscripts had been made accessible digitally prior to the outset of the project. 

Opening of the ‘Halleluja Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah (British Library, R.M.20.f.2), as displayed on Turning the Pages

The content was released in phases over the three years of the project, and the digitisation was generously supported by the Derek Butler Trust. Preservation of the originals and the resulting digital surrogates was a key consideration. The British Library has digitisation studios at both its London and Yorkshire sites. However, in order to minimise the risks associated with transportation, the manuscripts were digitised in London, where they are housed.

Digitisation studio at the British Library, London.

Prior to photography, each volume was assessed by a conservator.  Professional photographers then photographed each manuscript cover-to-cover, using the equipment and book supports recommended by the conservator. Following image capture, the photographer deposited a set of master images for each manuscript in both TIFF and JPEG formats on one of the Library’s secure servers. Staff in the Music Department then used image-processing software to convert the TIFFs into tiny tiled images, thereby facilitating zooming. 

 

Digitised version of Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’ (British Library R.M.20.h.5) on the British Library Digitised Manuscripts website (www.bl.uk/manuscripts)

All of the British Library’s autograph Handel manuscripts are categorised as ‘restricted’. For visitors to the British Library’s Rare Books and Music Reading Room, this means that access to the originals is granted only with curatorial permission. The availability of the Handel manuscripts on the British Library Digitised Manuscripts website makes inconvenient microfilm a thing of the past. It also opens up a wealth of valuable primary source material to a much larger audience, free of charge, and from the comfort of a home or office PC.

 

Don't miss out on this special event in the British Library Conference Centre on Thursday 22 September 2016, 18.30-20.00.

New-York based playwright and theatre historian John Wolfson will explore the work of composer Arthur Sullivan, focusing on the time he spent with a number of opera companies during his lifetime.

Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) 

Arthur Sullivan is well-known for his association with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, whose archive was recently acquired by the British Library. However, there were five other companies with which he was also connected during his lifetime. In his talk – accompanied by readings by a guest actor – John Wolfson will consider Sullivan's lifelong preoccupation with finding an opera company devoted to the production of grand opera in English.

For further information and online booking go to http://www.bl.uk/events/arthur-sullivan-and-the-english-opera-companies. 

Readers of our previous blog post will be aware that today is the last day of Shakespeare in Ten Acts, the British Library’s popular exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of the birth of the Bard.

As the exhibition draws to a close, our attention has turned to the Great Fire of London. After raging for several days, it was finally extinguished on 6 September 1666, 350 years ago today.

Here in Music Collections, we have one particular question in mind: what do Shakespeare, music and the Great Fire of London have in common?

The answer lies in the well-known song "London’s burning":

         London's burning, London's burning

        Fetch the engine, fetch the engine

        Fire, fire! Fire, fire!

        Pour on water, pour on water

Still popular in schools today, the song is often sung in a round, with each singer starting after the previous one has sung one line of text. The words are often considered to be about the Great Fire of London. However, the earliest known notated version actually dates from 1580 and bears the words “Scotland it burneth”. It forms part of the Lant Manuscript, held in the collections at King’s College Cambridge (King's College, Rowe MS 1), and is set to essentially the same music.

“Scotland it burneth” (King's College, Rowe MS 1). Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge

 

And now for the Shakespeare connection. The song is alluded to in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Scene 1. Grumio asks Curtis to prepare a warm fire for guests:

        Curtis: Who calls so coldly?

        Grumio: A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou may'st slide from my shoulder to my heel, with no greater a run but my head and my neck. A fire, good         Curtis.

        Curtis: Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?

        Grumio: O ay, Curtis, av; and therefore “fire, fire; cast no water”.

If you’re struggling to remember how the tune goes, here’s a version from our printed music collections for four-part choir arranged by one William Schaeffer and published in 1930. Enjoy!

British Library,  VOC/1930/SCHÄFFER