During the last few months we have been actively publishing music manuscripts on Digitised Manuscripts. Approximately 60 digitised manuscripts are listed below grouped in rough chronological order. Highlights include: The ‘Cosyn’ and ‘Forster’ virginal books and autographs by Purcell; Henry Lawes; Haydn; Thomas Arne; Rossini; Mendelssohn; Verdi; Arthur Sullivan; Berlioz; Gounod; Liszt; Offenbach; Mahler; and Elgar.

16th-century music manuscripts

A collection of motets, masses, Te Deum, and Kyrie, in four volumes, by English composers (Add MS 17802; Add MS 17803; Add MS 17804; Add MS 17805); A collection of services, anthems, and a few part-songs, for five voices, by English composers (Add MS 30480; Add MS 30481; Add MS 30482; Add MS 30483; Add MS 30484); A collection of sacred compositions in parts (Add MS 32377); A collection of parts of masses, motets, and services (Add MS 34191); A miscellany of Middle English verse, including ballads by Chaucer and Lydgate; 'The Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwart' by Alexander Montgomerie; 'Nebuchadnezzar's Fierie Furnace'; the 'Annals of Oskell'; grammatical exercises in Latin and Greek; and Old songs of Durham (Harley MS 7578); Masses and motets, in parts, by Nicolas Ludford (Royal Appendix MS 45; Royal Appendix MS 46; Royal Appendix MS 47; Royal Appendix MS 48); A collection of largely sacred music of English origin, composed for instruments and voice (Royal Appendix MS 74; Royal Appendix MS 75; Royal Appendix MS 76); A collection of French and Italian compositions by anonymous authors (Royal Appendix MS 55); A collection of frottole, strambotti, and odes, with music for four voices, by Italian composers of the 15th and early 16th century (Egerton MS 3051).

A Te deum from the Cantus part-book, Add MS 30480, f. 4r.

17th-century music manuscripts

A volume with miscellaneous writings, ornamented with initials, portraits of saints, royal arms, etc. including songs with lute accompaniment in tablature (Add MS 4900); A volume with keyboard and lyra viol music (Add MS 63852); The Cosyn Virginal Book (R.M.23.l.4); The Forster Virginal Book (R.M.24.d.3); The autograph of Henry Purcell’s The Yorkshire Feast Song (Egerton MS 2956); The Henry Lawes Music Manuscript (Add MS 53723); Canons for 4 voices to the first lines of the Psalms (Vulgate version), by Sydrach Rahel, with a dedication, in French , to James I (Royal Appendix MS 64).

The Cosyn Virginal Book. R.M.23.l.4, f. 2r

Henry Purcell’s The Yorkshire Feast Song. Egerton MS 2956, f.1r

18th-century music manuscripts

Original letters of Joseph Haydn (Egerton MS 2380); Sonatas, suites and other works for keyboard instrument by G. F. Handel and other composers (MS Mus. 1587); A collection of anthems, in score, by G.F. Handel (Add MS 30309); The Chandos Music Manuscripts (Add MS 62099; Add MS 62100; Add MS 62101; Add MS 62102; Add MS 62103); A collection of songs, excerpts from operas, and an anthem, by Thomas Arne (Add MS 29370); Autograph cantatas by Antonio Caldara (Add MS 31549); Sonatas for the viola-da-gamba by Carl Friedrich Abel (Add MS 31697); 19th century letters and papers relating to the ownership of the Mozart string quartets in Add MS 37763-37765 (Add MS 37766).

Letter from Joseph Haydn to the music printer William Forster. Egerton MS 2380, f. 3r

19th-century music manuscripts

Selected autograph vocal pieces by Gioacchino Rossini (Add MS 30246); Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s autograph of his String Quartet in E flat (Add MS 30900); The Scherzo, Notturno, and Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night's Dream arranged by the composer for piano (Egerton MS 2955); Giuseppe Verdi’s autograph of his opera Attila (Add MS 35156); The autograph of Robert Schumann's piano sonata in F minor (Add MS 37056); Charles François Gounod’s Messe Solennelle (Add MS 37639); The autograph score of Arthur Sullivan’s operetta The Gondoliers (Add MS 53779); Letters from Hector Berlioz to members of his family (Add MS 56237); Songs by Thomas Moore arranged by Henry Bishop and others (Add MS 19569); Songs with piano accompaniment by Hortense Bonaparte, wife of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland (Add MS 30148); 19th-century copy of The ‘Lamentabatur Jacob' by Cristobal Morales, and a setting of ‘Incipit Lamentatio Hieremiæ’ by Thomas Tallis (Add MS 34070); Autograph compositions by Franz Liszt (Add MS 34182); The musical autograph album of Eliza Wesley, containing short pieces, inscriptions and signatures of numerous composers, musicians, and singers (Add MS 35026); Miscellaneous autograph compositions by various composers (Add MS 38070); Music by Michael Haydn and Carl Maria von Weber (Add MS 41634); Airs from the cantatas and other works of J.S. Bach, arranged by Robert Franz for alto and tenor voices with pianoforte accompaniment (Add MS 41635); Jacques Offenbach’s autograph score of his comic opera Fantasio (Add MS 42064); Miscellaneous music, partly autograph, by various 18th- and 19th-century composers (Add MS 47860).

Autograph of Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E flat. Add MS 30900.

 

Musical quotation from ‘Amami Alfredo’ from Verdi’s opera La traviata in the composer’s autograph. Add MS 35026, f. 69r

Early 20th-century music manuscripts

Cancelled folio from the draft orchestral full score of the third movement, ‘Rondo-Burleske’, of Gustav Mahler's Symphony no.9 in D major (MS Mus. 97); Sketches and drafts by Edward Elgar (Add MS 49973 B).

Cancelled folio from Mahler’s draft orchestral full score of his Symphony no.9 in D major. Third movement, ‘Rondo-Burleske’. MS Mus. 97.

 

With the activities of concert and opera organisations abruptly curtailed owing to the coronavirus crisis, it seems a good time to explore an unusual set of concert programmes held by the British Library.  The Konzert-Programm-Austausch – or Concert Programme Exchange – collection stands out in the Library’s extensive holdings of programmes for its size, geographical diversity, and unusual configuration.  Bound in 60 volumes, the collection consists of some 15,000 programmes and flyers dating from between 1900 and 1914 and encompassing concerts given in Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, the USA, South America and Japan.

Title page of the 1909-1910 Konzert-Programm-Austausch series (British Library, shelfmark P.P.1946.ad.)

This material forms part of a unique scheme initiated in 1893 by the Leipzig-based publisher Breitkopf & Hartel to distribute programmes on a subscription basis.   

Subscribers would receive 36 instalments per year, each typically containing between 50 and 100 programmes arranged alphabetically by location.  Annual subscriptions were offered to organisations such as music societies, orchestras, and chamber groups, each of which was obliged to contribute multiple copies of its programmes for distribution within the series.  Over time, subscribers could therefore build up runs of original programmes from each organisation.  The arrangement of the collection into separate parts, each enclosed in a wrapper with a decorative title page, reflects the way in which Breitkopf collected and then distributed the programmes to subscribers.

The venture as a whole operated from 1893 until 1944, a period of significant change in the technology of music dissemination.  In London, the conductor Sir Henry Wood (1869-1944) – founder of the long-running Promenade Concerts – subscribed to the series and contributed a selection of programmes for his concerts at the Queen’s Hall and elsewhere.  Indeed, the first few volumes in the British Library collection once formed part of Wood’s personal library and each are bound with his name embossed in gold lettering on the front cover. 

Sir Henry Wood (1869-1944). © National Portrait Gallery, London. NPG D45376

Wood was especially interested in new and unusual repertory – he called such works ‘novelties’ – and information gleaned from the Concert Programme Exchange series could, in theory, have influenced the programming of his concerts, or at least given him an indication of musical trends in other parts of Europe.  The series might also have acted to promote awareness of the activities and schedules of soloists and conductors, which will have given an inquisitive conductor like Wood ideas for future performances.  In this respect it helped to bridge the gap between the pre-audio era and the advent of commercial recording and broadcasting. 

The portion of the series held at the British Library contains a rich variety of material, reflecting not only the musical repertories performed at the time but also the visual aesthetics for marketing performances at the time.  Represented within the collection are programmes not only for some of the world’s most important concert venues – such as the Queen’s Hall in London, the Musikverein in Vienna, and Carnegie Hall in New York – but also a wide range of concert-giving organisations in countless smaller towns and cities.  A typical issue dating from January 1900 consists of 41 flyers and programmes, beginning with a concert given in Altona by the Altonaer Kirchenchor at the St. Johanniskirche on 4 January.  The remaining items are from venues in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. 

They include a performance of Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Oskar Fried in Vienna on 2 January with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as subscription concerts of orchestral music presented by the Berlin Hofkapelle (under Felix Weingartner), the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Tonhalle in Zurich. The repertory ranged from performances of baroque choral music, to a performance of Bruch’s ‘Das Feuerkreuz’ in Cologne, to piano recitals by Ernst von Dohnanyi in Berlin and Wilhelm Backhaus in Darmstadt. Through the collection researchers can therefore investigate repertories and reconstruct concert programming with a detail and a geographic breadth impossible in any single collection of programmes elsewhere. 

The collection has been digitised in full and is currently available via the Nineteenth-Century Collections Online portal, a subscription service which can be accessed in the Library’s reading rooms (https://www.gale.com/intl/c/ncco-british-theatre-music-and-literature-high-and-popular-culture).

Rupert Ridgewell, Lead Curator, Printed Music

Commodore Matthew Perry’s gunboat diplomacy opened up feudal Japan to western trade paving the way for the 1868 Meiji Restoration. To avoid the risk of colonisation, the restored Imperial government initiated a period of sustained modernisation and industrialisation, adopting western fashions and ideas. Japan embraced western music, adapting it to create a new musical genre called Yōgaku. Music being a potent form of cultural expression, Yōgaku was first introduced into the school curriculum by the Japanese Empire to help forge a modern national identity, and elements of it have remained in such use to the present day. The Japanese Postal Authority released a series of nine stamp issues between 24 August 1979 and 10 March 1981 to commemorate the national music curriculum.

The first series issued on 24 August 1979 includes this 50-yen stamp designed by J. Takidaira (Figure 1) depicting a man standing in front of a ruined castle under moonlight with excerpts of the lyrics and score for Kōjō no tsuki (Moon Over Castle Ruins) by Bansui Doi and Rentarō Taki respectively.

Figure 1

The second stamp (Figure 2) designed by R. Taniuchi illustrates a sunset scene with a boy holding a toy aeroplane beside a girl throwing a ball in the air along with an extract from the score and lyrics for Yūyake Koyake (Evening Glow) produced by the composers Ukō Nakamura and Shin Kusakawa in July 1923.

Figure 2

The second series issued on 26 November 1979 both commemorate music by Tatsuyuki Takano and Teiichi Okano.

Hori’s design for the first 50-yen stamp depicts yellowish-red maple leaves being blown off a tree branch beneath the music and lyrics of Momiji (Maple Leaves) written in 1911 for 2nd grade elementary school text books (Figure 3). The second designed by T. Murakami reveals a man holding a parcel walking through a village scene beneath the last four bars and lyrics to Furusato (Birthplace) produced in 1914 for 6th grade elementary school (Figure 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

The third series released on 28 January 1980 includes a 50-yen stamp (Figure 5) incorporating artwork by Shigehiko Ishikawa of boats mooring in a watery landscape accompanied by the score and lyrics of Fuyugeshiki (Wintry Scene), composed in 1913 as teaching material for 5th Grade Elementary School. The second one (Figure 6), designed by S. Watanabe depicts Mount Fuji with the music and lyrics to Fujisan (Mount Fuji), composed and published for use by elementary schools in 1910.

Figure 5

Figure 6

These were followed by the fourth series issued on 21 March 1980. M. Anno’s stamp design (Figure 7) comprises a rural scene accompanying part of the score and lyrics of Haru no ogawa (Spring Brook) composed in 1912 by Takano and Okano for 4th Grade Students. The other stamp by K. Morita (Figure 8) illustrates a young Japanese girl reaching out towards cherry blossom with score and lyrics from the Edo Period song Sakura (Cherry Blossoms). Their inclusion in a publication by the Tōkyō School of Music in 1888 compiled by the Director of Music to the Ministry of Education indicates it has long been in use in the national music curriculum.

Figure 7

Figure 8

The fifth series issued on 28 April 1980 includes a stamp designed by R. Taniuchi (Figure 9) comprising a young Japanese boy and girl looking out to sea with a boat in the background and with music and lyrics from Umi (The Sea). Created by Ryūha Hayashi and Takeshi Inoue it was first published in ‘First Grade Elementary School Songbook No. 1’ in 1941 to teach 1st Grade students. F. Hori’s design for the second stamp (Figure 10) of flowers and a moon accompany the music and lyrics to Takano and Okano’s work Oborozukiyo (Night of the Hazy Moon), created in 1914 for 6th Grade Elementary School students.

Figure 9

Figure 10

The sixth series issued on 16 June 1980, includes S. Watanabe’s stamp design (Figure 11), a photographic image of the Japanese national flag and a rooftop with the score and lyrics of Takano and Okano’s song Hinomaru (The Rising Sun) used in 1st Grade Elementary classes since 1941. The second by M. Anno (Figure 12) presents a marshland scene with score and lyrics to Shoko Ema and Yoshinao Nakata’s song Natsu no omoide (Memories of Summer). First broadcast in 1949 on NHK Radio it is used to teach 2nd year Junior High School.

Figure 11

Figure 12

The first stamp (Figure 13) of 7th series issued on 18 September 1980 carries K. Negishi’s image of a woman outdoors holding out her hand to a red dragonfly with music for Aka Tonbo (Red Dragonfly), a song created by Rofū Miki and Kōsaku Yamada in 1927. Included in a collection of children’s stories called ‘The Acorn’ by 1980 it was included in Japan’s national music curriculum to teach 1st Grade Junior High Schools. The second by S. Hayashi (Figure 14) depicts a Japanese woman seated under a night sky with music for Hamabe no uta (Song by the Sea) created by Kokei Hayashi and Tamezō Narita in 1916 as teaching material for 2nd Grade Junior High School.

Figure 13

Figure 14

Issued on 9 February 1891, the 8th series includes k. Morita’s design (Figure 15) revealing a mother holding a baby whilst playing a Japanese drum called a den-den daiko. Above this image, is the music for Komoriuta (Lullaby), a traditional nursery rhyme included in a 1941 songbook to teach 3rd Grade students. The second by M. Yonekura (Figure 16) shows a young girl day-dreaming with an island and palm tree in the background accompanied by music to Yashi no mi (Coconut) produced by Tōson Shimazaki and Toraji Ōhaka in 1936 for an NHK Radio series of people’s songs. It was subsequently adopted as teaching material for 3rd Grade Junior High School.

Figure 15

Figure 16

The 9th series sold on 10 March 1981 includes a stamp by T. Murakami (Figure 17) depicting a child playing amongst birds, butterflies and flora with music to Haru ga kita (Spring Has Come) by Takano and Okano, a song written in 1910 for use in 2nd Grade Elementary School. The Final stamp by S. Hayashi (Figure 18) illustrates a woman smelling blossom upon a branch with music to Hana (Flowers), composed by Hogoromo Takeshima and Rentarō Taki for 3rd Grade Junior High School.

Figure 17

Figure 18

In total 28,000,000 sets of the first six series and 26,000,000 sets of the last two series were photogravure printed in Tōkyō, revealing how stamps comprise a form of mass media. Used postally and collected, stamps transmit multiple memes or units of cultural expression nationally and globally. These nine stamp issues offer more examples of how the British Library’s Philatelic Collections provide an invaluable research resource for musicologists.

Richard Scott Morel, Curator, Philatelic Collections

Danyel Gilgan, author of The Life Before: My Grandfather's Life Uncovered, writes about the artistic and personal relationship of Wilf Franks and Michael Tippett.

Wilf Franks and Michael Tippett in Spain in 1933. Photo by David Ayerst. Reproduced with permission.

Having spent much of the last seven years researching the life of my late grandfather, the artist Wilf Franks, I discovered many musical links to his life. My new book The Life Before: My Grandfather's Life Uncovered explores his connections to figures such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. But it was the writings of another giant of 20th-century music which brought me to the Rare Books and Music Reading Room at the British Library. The figure in question is Sir Michael Tippett, and the Library’s collection of Tippett letters and musical scores provided an extraordinary reservoir of information about the youthful life of my grandfather.

Throughout much of the 1930s, the lives of Wilf Franks and Michael Tippett were intertwined, as together they staged musical and dramatic productions in diverse locations such as Battersea Town Hall and the East Cleveland mining village of Boosbeck in the North East of England. During these years of youthful experimentation, the two young men became involved in an intense and volatile love affair as they explored theories of pacifism and embraced the radical Marxist politics of Leon Trotsky. At this time they also shared a passion for traditional British folk music and the poetry of luminaries such as William Blake and Wilfred Owen.

Poetry

In one letter Tippett makes a powerful statement about Wilf Franks’ poetic influence on their relationship.

'… he spends an hour or so with me here on the Blake I am going to set, and with a surer instinct for poetry than mine tells me where to get off – in point of fact I am therefore only setting the ‘Song of Liberty’ from The Marriage [of Heaven and Hell]… Wilfred Owen he knows almost word for word and draws it out for me, its meanings, its divine pity and so on – that will stay as long as it means something to us both …[1]'

As well as this connection to Tippett’s setting of William Blake’s ‘A Song of Liberty’, the relationship is poetically linked to another of Tippett’s compositions. In 1935, Tippett completed his String Quartet no.1, a piece that is now considered the first official composition in his canon of works. He wrote the following of the piece:

'Meeting with Wilf was the deepest, most shattering experience of falling in love: and I am quite certain that it was a major factor underlying the discovery of my own individual musical ‘voice’… all that love flowed out in the slow movement of my First String Quartet…[2]'

The original manuscript of String Quartet no.1 is held in the Tippett collection at the British Library (Add MS 59808). On the first page of the document is the simple inscription, ‘To Wilfred Franks Quartet no I in A by Michael Tippett’.  Opposite this dedication, Tippett wrote out the Wilfred Owen poem ‘Happiness’:

Ever again to breathe pure happiness,

The happiness our mother gave us, boys?

So smile at nothings, needing no caress?

Have we not laughed too often since with joys?

Have we not wrought too sick & sorrowful wrongs

For their hands’ pardoning? The sun may cleanse,

And time, & starlight Life will sing sweet songs,

And gods will show us pleasures more than men’s.

But the old Happiness is unreturning.

Boy’s griefs are not so grievous as youth’s yearning,

Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.

We who have seen the gods’ kaleidoscope,

And played with human passions for our toys,

We knew men suffer chiefly by their joys.

Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Happiness’. Written here by Michael Tippett on the inside cover of the manuscript of his String Quartet No.1, the composition that is dedicated to Wilf Franks. Add MS 59808. ©The Sir Michael Tippett Will Trust. Reproduced with permission.

The optimistic opening is in contrast to the darker second verse. Owen seems to be contrasting his happy youth to the hell of war, but the poem appears here as a poignant prediction of how the joy of Wilf and Tippett’s early relationship would end in sadness and disarray. Perhaps, even at this mid-point in the relationship, Tippett already knew the love affair would have a painful end.

Politics

Politics, too, played an important role in Wilf and Tippett’s relationship. From the early days of the affair both men had a passion for radical Marxist politics. By the mid-1930s they had embraced Leon Trotsky’s political thinking and were starting to involve themselves with London’s emerging Trotskyist movement. At this time Fascism was raising its ugly head across Britain, and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) was preaching hateful, anti-Semitic rhetoric on the streets of London. On Sunday 4 October 1936, Mosley planned to march his men along Cable Street in East London, right through the heart of the local Jewish Community. Thousands of left-wing anti-fascist protesters came to support the local Jewish community’s effort to block the fascist parade. Amongst the crowd were Wilf Franks and the composer Alan Bush. Appeals by the Jewish community to have the march banned fell on deaf ears and the Metropolitan Police were tasked with clearing a path for the fascists. As mounted police began baton charging the crowd, Wilf stood on a soap box shouting ‘Stand firm comrades, stand firm!’ He was grabbed from the crowd by the police and charged with assaulting a police officer, a charge which he always denied. As Wilf sat in a police cell with other arrested men, he would have heard the news that Mosley and the BUF were forced to turn away from the Jewish neighbourhood and march instead towards the west. It was a famous victory against British fascism. Three days later Tippett wrote to Alan Bush:

'Yes, Sunday was historic! Wilf is on remand for criminal assault – police perjury - & the family fortune has fallen heavily over a counsel for him. Thames Police Court Friday morning! So it goes. Love Michael.'

Michael Tippett's postcard to Alan Bush. 7th October 1936. MS Mus. 499.

© The Sir Michael Tippett Will Trust. Reproduced with permission.

Tippett’s attempts to get Wilf freed failed when he was sentenced to 28 days hard labour. The composer spent more of his meagre financial resources on a failed appeal against the sentence, as a second letter to Alan Bush shows:

'My dear Alan, I was glad to hear from Wilf by phone that you were in touch with him… I have compromised myself so to speak for the whole amount & shall pay the remainder…[3]'

A Painful End

The love relationship between the two young men came to an end in August, 1938, when Wilf Franks told Tippett of his intention to marry. The news came as a bitter blow to the composer, ‘It was as if a whole dam had opened’[4] he wrote. Tippett was plunged into a personal crisis, and he sought healing in Jungian psychoanalysis. Despite the painful split, Wilf Franks and his new love Meg Masters continued to work with Tippett on creative events such as a 1939 Symphony of Youth in Brockwell Park, South London. At this time Tippett was working on the libretto for a new oratorio. The poetry of Owen and Blake, the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist politics which Franks and Tippett had embraced and the Jungian analysis in which Tippett sought healing, would all find their way into the libretto of the oratorio which became Tippett’s most famous work, A Child of Our Time.

By the time A Child of Our Time premiered in 1944, Wilf Franks and Michael Tippett were fully estranged. It would be some 40 years until the friendship was rekindled. A recently discovered letter sent from Tippett to Franks gives an interesting insight into the composer's feelings towards his old friend at the time of the reunion.[5] The composer wrote, 'As you have my phone no. now, will you keep it close to your heart', Tippett then adds, with a nod to the painful past and with a touch of humour, 'or even throw it once more into the dustbin'. He signs the letter 'Love Mike', the affectionate name that Wilf had always used. Although living at opposite ends of the country, the two men, who both lived into their 90s, remained friends for the rest of their lives.

Danyel Gilgan

References

[1] Schuttenhelm, Thomas, Selected Letters of Michael Tippett (Faber and Faber, 2005), page 233.

[2] Tippett, Michael, Those Twentieth-Century Blues: An Autobiography (Hutchinson, 1991), page 58.

[3] Tippett letter to Alan Bush. 20th October 1936. British Library Alan Bush Collection, MS Mus. 449.

[4] Tippett, Michael, Those Twentieth-Century Blues: An Autobiography (Hutchinson, 1991), page 62.

[5] The recently discovered letter from Michael Tippett to Wilfred Franks is held in the Franks family collection and is quoted here with permission from The Sir Michael Tippett Will Trust.

The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) is a collaboration between the British Library and the Qatar National Library, in which historical records from the former India Office are being catalogued and digitised, along with Arabic manuscripts on scientific topics from the British Library’s collection. Music theory has always been considered a scientific pursuit by Arabic scholars – as it had been by Plato and Pythagoras – on account of the mathematical nature of topics such as intervals, modes, rhythm, transposition, and tonal relationships.

Musical manuscripts digitised for the QDL so far include a copy of a commentary on an influential theoretical treatise, the Book of Cycles (Kitāb al-adwār) by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī (d. 1294) (Add MS 7471, ff. 41v-92r), a work on the construction of musical instruments (Or. 9649), a cosmological treatise on music (Add MS 23494), and a recently-catalogued copy of the Kitāb al-inʻām bi-maʻrifat al-anghām (Book of Generosity on the Understanding of Melodies; Or. 13019) by the 16th-century music theorist Shams al-Dīn al-Ṣaydāwī. [Note that although this manuscript has been digitised it is not yet available to view on the Qatar Digital Library.]

The Kitāb al-inʻām is a short text in verse, remarkable for its presentation of an innovative and apparently unique system of music notation. It is also a feast for the eyes: both its text and its many diagrams are copied using a range of brightly-coloured inks which are not merely decorative, but rather an inherent aspect of this notation system. While several other copies of this text are known, the QDL’s high resolution, full-colour digitisation is a first, allowing its fundamental aesthetic and graphic features to be appreciated on an accessible digital platform for the first time.

Figure 1: Or 13019, f. 1v, opening of the treatise

Little is known about the author, although his name indicates origins in Ṣaydā (Sidon) in today’s Lebanon. His dates are uncertain, but he may have died in Damascus in 1506, which would mean that Or. 13019 – dated to 906 in the Islamic hijrī calendar (equivalent to 1501 CE) – was produced within his lifetime, as well as being the earliest known surviving copy. Ownership marks recorded on folio 1r indicate predominantly Syrian owners over the centuries. It was bought by the British Museum in 1966.

Following an introduction [fig. 1], al-Ṣaydāwī opens the treatise by outlining the four fundamental musical modes (called ‘uṣūl’) used in his time: Rāst, ʻIrāq, Zīrāfkand and Iṣfahān. Modes are constructed of sets of tetrachords which may be present within more than one of them, establishing complex familial relationships between them. From each of these four basic modes, two further ‘branch’ modes (furūʻ) are derived, which maintain a musical relationship with their ‘parents’. In addition to these groups of four and eight, al-Ṣaydāwī also enumerates six secondary modes called awāzāt, each of which is likewise related to two of the twelve fundamental and branch modes already outlined.

Figure 2: Or 13019, f. 9v, depicting the fundamental mode Rāst, and its branch modes Zankulā and `Ushshāq

To present these modes and describe further aspects of their performance, al-Ṣaydāwī uses a stave-like diagram [fig. 2] of eight labelled parallel horizontal lines enclosed within a circular frame, representing the degrees of the scale (buḥūr). The lowest pitch is indicated on the bottom line, and the highest (an octave above) on the second-highest line (the uppermost line in each diagram is a framing device and not indicative of a note).

Figure 3: Or 13019, f. 7r, description of colours used in the stave diagram

Al-Ṣaydāwī follows established convention in using Persian terms to describe these notes as yekgāh (first position), dūgāh (second position), etc. However, he innovates in additionally colour-coding each line, with the eighth line from the bottom the same colour as the lowest, as the notes represented are an octave apart (the uppermost line in the diagrams is only a frame). The specific colours are described in the introduction to the text [fig. 3].

Al-Ṣaydāwī goes on to outline a system for representing notes above and below the basic octave, independently of this graphic stave. To do this, a table [fig. 4] presents colour-coded Arabic alphanumeric abjad letters indicating microtonal intervals. These notes are paired with a ‘question’ and ‘response’ concept indicating further notes, at fixed intervals of separation totalling an octave, and allowing the total range of notation to be expanded.

Figure 4: Or 13019, f. 13v, table of notation beyond the basic octave

The second unique aspect of al-Ṣaydāwī’s work is a notational system applied to the stave diagram which, in combination with instructions in the text, indicates aspects of the performance of the mode [fig. 5]. The letter mīm (م), standing for ma’khadh (مأخذ, meaning ‘place from which one takes something’) is written on the starting note/line of the mode and in the same colour, on the left of the diagram. The mode’s final note – often also its tonal centre – is indicated with the word rakz (with the sense of ‘setting, fixing’), written on the corresponding line, to the right.

Figure 5: Or 13019, 10v, instructions for playing Zīrāfkand

The instruction iṣʻad (اصعد, ‘ascend’) in red, denotes a transition to a higher pitch. Conversely, a yellow letter hāʼ (ھ, from the root هبط, ‘descent’) indicates a transition to a lower pitch. These ascents or descents must be performed note-by-note (bi-al-tartīb) if the letter ‘tā’’ (ت, in red) is written next to the note towards which the pitch ascends or descends, whereas the player should jump directly to that pitch if iṣʻad or hāʼ is written with a long ‘tail’. Other abbreviations indicate additional aspects of performance such as prolongation, staccato articulation, and trill-like ornamentation.

This work presents difficulties of interpretation due to the poetic text and some ambiguity in terminology. For example, yekgāh, meaning the first note of the scale, also indicates the particular mode which starts on that note, i.e. rāst, while buḥūr also has variant meanings. Similarly, while the word maqām these days means ‘mode’ in general, in al-Ṣaydāwī’s time it still retained a more literal meaning of ‘placement’. Furthermore, the meaning of some of the notational abbreviations is unclear; some of the diagrams in the extant copies appear unlabelled and unfinished; and Or. 13019 lacks at least one folio (between the present folios 11v and 12r).

Al-Ṣaydāwī’s musical notation remains a fascinating and enigmatic theoretical experiment, unique of its time. While it permitted a wide range of notes to be succinctly conveyed, their relationships to each other expressed, and an unprecedented level of codified performance detail to be indicated, no later texts are known to have developed this system further.

Jenny Norton-Wright

Arabic Scientific Manuscripts Curator, British Library Qatar Project

References

Antar, Thérèse B. (translation and commentary), Exploitation de la couleur en musique: Livre de la connaissance des tons et leur explication. Mouhammad Chams al-Din al-Saydawi al-Dimachqi (Beirut: Presse Chemaly and Chemaly, 2001).

Ghrab, Anas, 'Livre de la générosite dans la connaisance des modes: Edition et traduction (Unpublished thesis submitted for the Diplôme d'études approfondies, Université Lumiere-Lyon, 2002).

Shiloah, A. and A. Berthier, 'A propos d’un "petit livre arabe de musique"', in Revue de musicologie, 71.1 (1985), pp. 164-77.

 

In these socially distanced times, a concerto for one person alone could be just the thing…

“I think that your idea of a concerto is wonderfully in tune with the times (and one should always move with them), and I entirely approve… In my non-authoritative opinion as publisher, I should think that a short preface might be expedient, in which it would be made clear that this concerto was conceived for piano alone, if this cannot be expressed on the title page in a few words. The object is new, and should be seen as new and pace-setting.”

-- Publisher Tobias Haslinger to Robert Schumann, 13 June 1836¹

Having mastered the pedagogical piano works of Muzio Clementi featured in our last blog post, you might now be looking for a new pianistic challenge. Among the latest batch of digitised manuscripts to be made available online is the autograph manuscript of Robert Schumann’s Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 14 (Add MS 37056) – first published in 1836 as a Concert sans Orchestre (‘Concerto without orchestra’).

Actually, Schumann seems to have initially intended to give the piece the rather less novel title of ‘Sonata’. That word appears, crossed out, three times throughout the manuscript: once at the beginning (f. 3r), replaced by ‘Concert’, once in the middle of the last movement (f. 21r) and once (almost illegible) on the back of a frustratingly cropped slip of paper (f. 20r).

Various titles from Add MS 37056

Bound at the beginning of the volume (f. 1r) is a title slip in Schumann’s hand that describes a ‘concerto for piano alone’ – a subtly different emphasis to the final published title (a concerto for piano alone, or a concerto without orchestra?). It is an interesting sub-genre, with other examples from J. S. Bach’s Italian Concerto and Charles Valentin Alkan’s 1857 Concerto for Solo Piano on one hand, through to 20th-century offerings by Kaikhosru Sorabji and Michael Finnissy on the other. Some of these attempt to evoke the effect of orchestra and soloist on a single instrument, while others give more a sense of a concerto through the grand, virtuosic rhetoric of the piano writing – which is perhaps the approach in this piece. 

But Schumann’s title didn’t stick anyway. Ignaz Moscheles, dedicatee of the first edition, was dismissive of the concerto idea and when the piece was published again in 1853, in a heavily revised second edition, it reverted to being a ‘Grande Sonate’.  (Incidentally, an autograph book that belonged to Moscheles is also in the British Library’s collections – Zweig MS 215 – it includes entries from both Robert and Clara Schumann).

 

“The composer requests the safekeeping of the manuscript, which also contains other pieces”

Note from Robert Schumann requesting the safe keeping of the manuscript (Add MS 37056, f. 2r).

The title is just one of several puzzles encapsulated in the manuscript. The ‘other pieces’ referred to by Schumann in his note above are two extra movements that would have been included in the original idea of the piece as a five-movement sonata. Those two movements, along with two variations from the middle movement, and the first page of a different last movement are crossed through in this manuscript, all dropped for the first edition. One of those two completed movements was reinstated in the second edition; the other was not published until 1866, after Schumann’s death.

Original version of the last movement, crossed through (Add MS 37056, f. 17v)

Subsequent editors, and indeed performers of the work, have had to tackle the question of what exactly is the definitive form of the piece. Linda Correll Roesner undertook an almost archaeological study of the manuscript in 1975², using paper and ink colour as evidence of the convoluted chronology, not just of the bigger changes such as the withdrawn movements, but also of the smaller-scale (but nonetheless significant) additions, subtractions, changes and alterations of details. Some of these made it into the first edition, others into the second, while others again did not appear in either! Most the corrections are added in different ink, but some are found on other parts of the page, some are in the form of notes to the engraver and some completely revised passages are on pasted-over slips of paper.

From the first movement - f. 9, with a pasted on amendment at the bottom (Add MS 37056, f. 8).

You might notice as you browse through the images on Digitised Manuscripts that there sometimes appear to be duplicates, despite being labelled with different folio numbers. This usually happens when extra bits of paper have been pasted onto the main folio, often where a composer is correcting or amending a passage (such as folio 8 in the image above, stuck onto the bottom of the page). Elsewhere in this manuscript the paste-overs have been separated, allowing us to see Schumann’s original intentions underneath (folio 20 for example, which was originally glued to the edge of folio 19v).

 

“Mr Schönwälder, proceed immediately with this concerto"

Note from Tobias Haslinger to the engraver (Add MS 37056, f. 2r).

Another layer of annotation on the manuscript relates to more prosaic activities. The note above is from publisher Tobias Haslinger to the engraver ‘Mr Schönwälder’ asking him to make a start on work on 17 June 1836. Markings in pencil throughout show Mr Schönwälder at work, including a note of the planned plate number for the edition and intended line and page breaks.

 

“... I wrote a concerto for you – and if this does not make clear my love for you, this one sole cry of the heart for you in which, incidentally you did not even realise how many guises your theme assumed (forgive me, it is the composer speaking) – truly you have much to make up for and will have to love me even more in the future!”

-- extract of a letter from Robert Schumann to Clara Wieck, 12 February 1838³.

'Andantino de Clara Wieck', (Add MS 37056, f. 15r).

Finally, from the material to the poetic. The piece, like much of Schumann’s music, comes with various aspects of autobiography almost encoded into it. Its composition coincided with a period in which Robert was forcibly separated from the love of his life and future wife, Clara Wieck. The theme he refers to appears in full in the slow movement (and can be seen in the image above), although it has not yet been identified from any of Clara’s known compositions. It could be seen as a very public declaration of the connection between the two musicians who continued to inspire each other in the years to come. The five descending notes of the theme went on to become something of an obsession for both Robert and, later, Johannes Brahms, and versions of this idea appear in a number of other compositions by them.⁴ The theme, or suggestions of it, appears throughout this piece too though, including as the dramatic opening gesture of the whole work – a launch pad into the turbulent and passionate first movement.

Opening of the first movement, with the 'Clara theme' appearing in the first bar (Add MS 37056, f. 3r).

There is a lot in this manuscript, both in the notation and beyond, in layers of evidence and ambiguity. Like many of Robert Schumann's manuscripts (see his later set of piano pieces, for example his Waldszenen in the BnF collections) it is like a graphic realisation of the romantic idea of the wild, turbulent moments of inspiration and creation – whilst at the same time being tempered by reminders of a more prosaic reality.

Chris Scobie

Lead Curator, Music Manuscripts

 

References

1. Quoted in the preface to the edition by Ernst Herttrich, published by G. Henle Verlag (2008). 

2. Linda Correll Roesner, ‘The Autograph of Schumann’s Piano Sonata in F Minor, Opus 14’, in The Musical Quarterly, 61/1. Jan 1975, pp. 98-130.

3. Quoted in Herttrich, preface. 

4. Judith Chernaik, 'Brahms's Clara themes revisited', in The Musical Times, Winter 2019.

A piano-playing theme is emerging from the Coronavirus lockdown, with several famous names playing online, or mentioning that they are learning to play, including actor Anthony Hopkins, footballer Nathan Aké, and rugby union player Tom Curry. For anyone with time for a little extra practice, this seems a good time to visit the pedagogical works of the pianist and composer Muzio Clementi.

Clementi was born in Rome in 1752. Moving to England at the age of 14, he spent the rest of his life either in London or travelling extensively in France, Germany and Russia. A simple list of his professional activities does not convey the significance of his achievement in each area. As a publisher, he was the first to publish the works of Beethoven in England, including some first editions; as a teacher, he influenced many important pianists of the next generation; his piano manufacturing firm introduced technical innovations, and his compositions, although overshadowed by those of more famous composers, are still played and admired 200 years on.

Muzio Clementi by Henry Richard Cook, after James Lonsdale stipple engraving, published 1833 NPG D9341 © National Portrait Gallery, London

As a composer, Clementi had most success with his keyboard music, writing sonatas, variations, suites, preludes and fugues and technical piano studies, and his best known publication Gradus ad Parnassum (1817, 1819, 1826) is a large compilation of these works.

His periods of travel were spent in promoting the Clementi firm’s pianos, making contacts with composers for his publishing business, and teaching. Both in England and abroad, he had professional pupils like J.B. Cramer, John Field, Ludwig Berger (later Mendelssohn’s teacher), Carl Zeuner and Frédéric Kalkbrenner (later briefly a teacher of Chopin). He also taught amateur players, and it was for this market that his educational works were written. In London he was in great demand as a piano teacher in the early 1790s, despite the lapse in his performing career caused by the great popularity of the music of the new arrival, Haydn.

His 1801 piano method, Introduction to the art of playing on the piano forte (British Library g.303.(3.), is one of the first instruction books specifically for the piano, which, as a relatively new instrument, was just beginning to supersede the harpsichord. It contains extracts from the works of other composers such as Handel, Corelli, Mozart and Beethoven, graded in difficulty, as well as instructional text. It begins with the basics (with a hint to the note-learning beginner to ignore the ‘short notes’ of the keyboard except as guides to the eye) and moves on to detailed information about theory, technique, style and expression for the more difficult pieces. The instructions are addressed directly to the pupil, with a serious and uncompromising assumption of a high level of understanding and application. For example, at the foot of one fingering study is the comment ‘Most of the passages fingered for the right hand, may, by the ingenuity and industry of the pupil, become models for the left.’ There is certainly no ‘dumbing down’ here!

Introduction to the art of playing on the piano forte quickly appeared in French and German translations. Publications aimed at intermediate and advanced students followed, and Clementi’s educational music became well known.

Among these pedagogical works are the easy Six progressive sonatinas op. 36, first published in 1797, which are still in use as teaching pieces, with a new edition appearing as recently as 2017.

Title page of Muzio Clementi’s Six Progressive Sonatinas op.36. Shelfmark: g.132.(4.)

Page 1 of Muzio Clementi’s Six Progressive Sonatinas op.36. Shelfmark: g.132.(4.)

The respectful attitude to the learner observable in the Introduction to the art of playing on the piano forte is also in evidence in the quality of the musical construction of these mini-sonatas; they are pieces which are not just possible but also satisfying for elementary pianists to play. Recommended for lockdown pianists everywhere!

Caroline Shaw

Printed & Manuscript Music Processing & Cataloguing Team Manager

References:

Leon Plantinga: ‘Clementi, Muzio’. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40033, accessed 14 May 2020.

Margaret Cranmer and Peter Ward Jones: ‘Clementi’. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05937, accessed 14 May 2020

Clementi Society: http://www.clementisociety.com/, accessed 15 May 2020.

Ernst Roth (1896–1971) might never have worked for Boosey & Hawkes, nor even have lived in Britain at all, had it not been for the foresight of Leslie Boosey and Ralph Hawkes amid the falling darkness of the late 1930s.  Papers in the Boosey & Hawkes archive (MS Mus. 1813) record the tale.

Roth had studied law, philosophy and music in his home city of Prague, and after earning his doctorate he moved to Vienna in 1922, joining the publishers Universal Edition.  Here, having found his vocation as a music publisher, he might have expected to spend his whole career.  But then came the Nazi Anschluss of 1938.  On March 12th that year, Austria was annexed and subjugated by Hitler’s regime.  With breathtaking speed a ‘commissar’ was appointed to ‘control’ Universal Edition: that is, to Nazify it. [1] Roth, along with his colleagues Alfred Kalmus and Erwin Stein, being Jewish, were immediate targets.  Not three weeks later, on March 31^st, he was, in his own matter-of-fact words, ‘discharged on account of my non-arian origin’. [2]

Extract from Dr. Ernst Roth’s Curriculum Vitae, 1938. (Temporary reference MS Mus. 1813, box BA23, file 69.3.). © Boosey & Hawkes. Reproduced with permission.

In London, Ralph Hawkes and Leslie Boosey were already swinging into action, planning a piece of shrewd businessmanship that also served as a bold rescue operation.  Boosey went to Vienna and, with the blessing of Jella Hertzka, the widow of the founder of Universal Edition, secured the services of Roth and Stein for Universal Edition's London branch (which Kalmus had already established in 1936).  Boosey also bought up all the shares in that subsidiary firm and obtained rights for most of Universal Edition’s catalogue.  Roth, Stein and Kalmus were given permission to take up residence in Britain, and in September started work in their new positions: Nazi Vienna’s loss was London’s gain.

‘It is urgent to get out from here!’ Letter of 13 August 1940 from Ernst Roth, interned in Prees Heath Camp, Shropshire, to Leslie Boosey. (MS Mus. 1813/2/1/279/1). © Boosey & Hawkes. Reproduced with permission.

Even on British soil their troubles were not over, however.  In July 1941, in common with many other overseas nationals, the three men found themselves interned as ‘Enemy Aliens’, being separated from their families and sent to camps in Shropshire or on the Isle of Man.  Letters in the archive tell of the lengths to which the firm – Leslie Boosey in particular – had to go in order to have them released.  At one point Boosey even asked the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams for help in pleading Roth’s case with the Home Office. [3]  All three were eventually released after nearly six months’ internment.

Copy letter of 11 October 1940 from Leslie Boosey to Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams was heavily involved in efforts to release foreign musicians who had been interned as ‘Enemy Aliens’. (MS Mus. 1813/2/1/281/6). © Boosey & Hawkes. Reproduced with permission.

Once settled, though, Roth committed the rest of his career to Boosey & Hawkes, remaining in continuous service until his retirement in 1964.  Rising to the position of Managing Director, he took charge of correspondence with composers and members of the public, scanned the horizon for infringements of copyright, and superintended the Music Department’s various divisions with a hawk’s eye.  Helen Wallace, in her history of Boosey & Hawkes, describes a ‘ruthlessly commercial’ man with ‘a razor sharp mind and the old-world charm to bring the grandest composers to heel’. [4] With Rufina Ampenoff (originally his assistant and later head of the Symphonic and Operatic department) he formed a formidable double-act.

Dr. Ernst Roth in the late 1950s or early 1960s. (Mus. Dep. 2017/19). ©Fayer

Without fear or favour he defended his company’s interests in the world of music. ‘I am afraid copyright is a matter which does not admit sentimental considerations’, he wrote to the organisers of the Edinburgh Festival in May 1960, informing them that the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra’s own instrumental parts, being unauthorised, could not be used during their forthcoming appearance in Britain: ‘Even Russian visitors owe obedience to the law in this country’. [5] He was keenly aware of the commercial value of music and its fickle fluctuations: in the 1960s Benjamin Lees was told that there was ‘very little that can be done’ with string quartets, regardless of their quality.  And within the company, too, Roth ran a tight ship: ‘In the last few months the general discipline has markedly declined’, reads an internal memorandum from September 1961; ‘[…] I like to believe that discipline among adults is a matter of self-respect and need not be enforced. However, I would have no alternative but to enforce it if this request […] remains without the expected response’. [6]

Circular to the Music Department of Boosey & Hawkes, 21 September 1961 (MS Mus. 1813/2/1/164/10.). ©Boosey & Hawkes. Reproduced with permission.

Outwardly, the man himself may have appeared no more inclined to ‘admit sentimental considerations’ than the principles of copyright.  But he was no philistine, and he knew his own mind when it came to musical judgement.  He placed Britten’s War Requiem ‘among the most outstanding works ever written at any time’, [7] and his memoirs, published after his retirement in 1964, reveal that his long years in ‘The Business of Music’ had not extinguished his love of music for its own sake, nor his belief in its value to humanity:  ‘Although I am at home in serious music I have a deep respect for music as a harbinger of joy. Let no one rob it of this precious gift!’ [8]

Dominic Newman

Manuscripts Cataloguer

References

[1] MS Mus. 1813/2/1/215/3.

[2] Business Affairs series (currently uncatalogued). Temporary reference MS Mus. 1813, box BA23, file 69.3.

[3] MS Mus. 1813/2/1/281/6.

[4] Wallace, Helen, Boosey & Hawkes: the publishing story (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 2007), p. 20.

[5] MS Mus. 1813/2/1/121/8.

[6] MS Mus. 1813/2/1/164/10.

[7] MS Mus. 1813/2/2/6/4.

[8] Roth, Ernst. The Business of Music (London: Cassel, 1969), p. 244.