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Introduction

We have around 100,000 pieces of manuscript music, 1.6 million items of printed music and 2 million music recordings! This blog features news and information about these rich collections. It is written by our music curators, cataloguers and reference staff, with occasional pieces from guest contributors. Read more

19 December 2019

Celebrating the music of Prince Albert

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Earlier this month we published a blog on Prince Albert the composer to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth. To celebrate his bicentenary further we have digitised a number of his music manuscripts in the Royal Music Library. The following manuscripts can now be viewed online: R.M.18.a.5; R.M.18.a.10; R.M.21.e.24; and R.M.21.e.26.

R.M.18.a.5 and R.M.18.a.10 are sources for Prince Albert’s cantata Invocazione all’armonia; R.M.21.e.24 a source for his Te Deum; and R.M.21.e.26 a source containing miscellaneous vocal compositions.

A music notebook

From the above manuscripts R.M.21.e.26 is of particular interest: the manuscript contains sketches, drafts and finished works primarily of Prince Albert’s songs written in his own hand. The volume also contains some sketches for his anthem ‘Out of the deep’, his Te Deum and his Invocazione all’armonia.

Apart from being a volume with autograph compositions, the manuscript is also interesting for revealing the private side of Prince Albert the composer: we can see how some of his musical ideas originated and how he worked on these developing them into finished works. In this respect, the volume resembles a music notebook.

The papers Prince Albert used to write the music in this volume are of different types, as evident from the slight variations in paper sizes, the colour of the paper, and the different number of staves per page; some leaves also show marks of having being folded. This suggests that the leaves were bound in a single volume at a later stage.

Autograph manuscript with music by Prince Albert
Opening page from Prince Albert’s song ‘Ein Blümchen zart’ showing some corrections. Shelfmark: R.M.21.e.26, f.10r. Autograph.
The Royal Library © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
R.m.21.e.26_f054v
A page from Prince Albert’s song ‘Erlschen ist das Barden Gluth’ showing corrections and additions. Shelfmark: R.M.21.e.26, f.54v. Autograph.
The Royal Library © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019

Prince Albert’s music handwriting

The manuscript R.M.21.e.26 is also an interesting source for the study of Prince Albert’s music handwriting. The appearance of his handwriting is not consistent in the volume, reflecting the different compositional stages of individual pieces as well as the different times and circumstances the music was being written.

Some works are neatly copied in ink and are in finished form, whereas others are copied in a hasty manner and often lack the accompaniment or have it only partially filled in; other leaves contain mere sketches in pencil. The differences in handwriting appearance can be seen in his notation of certain elements, such as clefs, especially the G clef as can be seen in the following snippets:

R.m.21.e.26_f001r_fragmentR.m.21.e.26_f010r_fragmentR.m.21.e.26_f054v_fragmentR.m.21.e.26_f013r_fragment

Fragment from a manuscript by Prince Albert showing his notation of treble clefs

Fragments from R.M.21.e.26, f.1r, f.10r, f.54v, f.13r and f.8r respectively showing Prince Albert’s notation of treble clefs

Music collecting

Apart from music by Prince Albert the Royal Music Library includes numerous printed and manuscript volumes with music either collected by Prince Albert and Queen Victoria or presented to them. Although it is difficult to establish the exact volumes that originally formed part of the royal couple’s music collection, the bindings of certain volumes, dedications, inscriptions, or letters kept inside volumes can serve as proof that these formed part of their music collection, as the examples shown below:

Front cover of a manuscript volume belonging to Queen Victoria
Front cover of a manuscript volume belonging to Queen Victoria. Shelfmark: R.M.18.a.18
Front cover of a manuscript volume belonging to Prince Albert
Front cover of a manuscript volume belonging to Prince Albert. Shelfmark: R.M.18.a.8.

One important volume that formed part of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria’s music collection is a volume that was presented to them by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy during one of his visits to London where he had also met the royal couple.

The volume includes arrangements from his Sieben Lieder ohne Worte op.62 and op.67 for piano four-hands in Mendelssohn’s autograph which he composed for the royal couple. The volume also contains a letter to Prince Albert from the composer, dated 9 June 1844, where he writes ‘[...] May Your Royal Highness occasionally play from these pieces and consider them as an earnest of sincerest gratitude for the gracious reception and the unforgettable hours in which you have allowed me to participate once again during my present visit in the past weeks.’ .[1]

Title page of Felix Mendelssohn's arrangements of his Sieben Lieder ohne Worte
Autograph title page of Felix Mendelssohn's arrangements from his Sieben Lieder ohne Worte op.62 and op.67. Shelfmark: R.M.21.f.24, f.1r

The Royal Music Library contains many more valuable sources for the study of Prince Albert’s music, as well as his and Queen Victoria’s musical tastes and collecting practices. It is hoped that the bicentenary anniversary of their births will spark further interest and research into their music collection and activities.

[1]. Quoted in O.W. Neighbour, ‘An unknown Mendelssohn autograph’, The British Library Journal, 4 (1978), pages 200-201.

Loukia Drosopoulou, Curator, Music

03 December 2019

A ‘fittingly impressive work’: Prince Albert the composer

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‘A holy blessed day, which we hail with gratitude & joy.’

Thus began Queen Victoria’s journal entry on Christmas Day, 1843. A few sentences later she continued, ‘Albert was occupied that whole evening in composing a Te Deum which is a very difficult thing & it gave him great trouble.’

Prince Albert (1819-61) is most frequently memorialised for his contribution to various aspects of British life in the mid-19th century, and, perhaps more so, for his early death in 1861 at the age of 42. This year, the joint 200th Anniversary of his and Queen Victoria’s birth, has revived interest in both him, and the lives and works of the royal couple. Amidst a diverse programme of activities celebrating the anniversary, Prince Albert has been the focus of a substantial collaborative digitisation project to make a large body of materials related to him available to the public.

Prince Albert's portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Replica by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1867, based on a work of 1859. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Having received a broad education in his youth, Prince Albert sustained many interests, amongst which was a devotion to music, whether as a listener, an organiser, a singer, or an instrumentalist. He achieved some distinction in each of these categories, with even Mendelssohn commending his skill at the organ. It is, however, to Prince Albert the composer that this post is dedicated.

In the early years of their marriage, Queen Victoria wrote not infrequently that Albert was ‘occupied in composing’ some new piece. However, by the end of 1845, Prince Albert was writing music ever less regularly. A leaf from a sketch for one of his last pieces, the Invocazione all’Armonia, reveals the extent to which his work began to intrude into his time composing, with rubbed out notes about another matter appearing in the margins of the page. As Theodore Martin, author of Prince Albert’s somewhat hagiographic official biography, The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, noted:

‘The Prince’s life, after he came to England, was too crowded to admit of his indulging freely his love of musical composition. The Muses are exacting mistresses, and will not send their best inspiration to a merely casual worshipper. But he produced enough to entitle him to a very high rank among amateur composers.’

This assessment is in many respects a fair one: in his short and rather busy life, Prince Albert found time to write a not insubstantial number of songs, as well as a handful of instrumental and choral works. The most complete published collection of his music (The Collected Compositions of His Royal Highness The Prince Consort) contains forty pieces, written before the commitments of his public life occluded further work in this area.

Erased notes in the margins of Prince Albert’s sketch for Invocazione all’Armonia
Erased notes in the margins of Prince Albert’s sketch for 'Invocazione all’Armonia'. British Library R.M.21.e.26, f.46v. The Royal Library © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019.

The genesis and material cultures of Prince Albert’s composition can, to some extent, be explored in the Royal Music Library at the British Library, though some relevant items remain in the Royal Collection. These collections reveal much, though far from all, about the journey from sketch to completion that the Prince’s pieces followed, and are well-supported by evidence from sources, including Queen Victoria’s journals, that include reference to performances of the works, and their reception.

From its beginnings on Christmas Day, 1843, the Te Deum underwent several developmental stages, though their ordering is not entirely clear. It appears in skeletal form twice: once sketched out in pencil, occasionally underlaid, work clearly ongoing; and again, with underlay inked out in a hand quite different to Prince Albert’s own, the melody sketched-in, in pencil; both are noted with occasional indications of harmony. Another, rather more complete, draft exists in the Royal Collection, as does a manuscript fair copy in a beautifully bound collection of his compositions; later versions include an appearance of the Te Deum as part of a compilation of Prince Albert’s church music in reduction for piano. Whether the two melodic sketches encapsulate the earliest work on the piece is uncertain, though it seems likely.

Manuscript showing the last page of the melodic sketch of Prince Albert's Te Deum
The last page of the melodic sketch of the ‘Te Deum’ which includes some indications as to the desired harmony. British Library R.M.21.e.26, f. 30r. The Royal Library © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019.

Whatever the case, the piece was written quite quickly, and, on the 27th of December, Queen Victoria wrote that ‘Albert sang over his beautiful Te Deum, which is quite finished now.’ It was clearly sent to be written out in fair copy almost immediately, for on the 30th of December, Queen Victoria wrote that, ‘Just as [Michael] Costa had left the room, Albert’s Te Deum, properly written out, arrived & we called him back, & sang it with him.’ Queen Victoria was herself an accomplished singer, and a few days later the couple sang the piece again with Costa (a prominent conductor, who also arranged Prince Albert’s Invocazione for orchestral forces) and another friend. Two weeks later, the Te Deum was sung in full for the first time by the choir at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and George Elvey had worked up the elements of a morning service from the material; Queen Victoria noted that the solo parts were ‘unsatisfactorily sung’.

The piece was performed at regular intervals thereafter, becoming a feature of important services attended by the Queen. It was sometimes given orchestral treatment, and a version for chorus and orchestra appears in the Royal Music Library, orchestrated by Ernst Lampert, the Kapellmeister of Prince Albert’s brother Ernst’s court at Coburg.

Manuscript showing the first page of Prince Albert's ‘Te Deum’ transcribed for orchestra by Ernst Lampert
The first page of the ‘Te Deum’ transcribed for orchestra by Ernst Lampert, January 1845. British Library R.M.21.e.24, f.2r.

Amongst the most prominent performances of the Te Deum, for Queen Victoria at least, must have been the one given at the thanksgiving service for her Jubilee, on the 21st of June, 1887, in a version revised for chorus, organ, brass, and drums by the then organist of Westminster Abbey, John Bridge. The following day, it was described in The Times as a ‘fittingly impressive work’. Queen Victoria herself, writing at the end of a ‘never to be forgotten day,’ was more effusive.

‘The Te Deum by my darling Albert sounded beautiful’.

 

Dr Andrew Cusworth

Research Fellow

The Prince Albert Digitisation Project

Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; Royal Collection Trust; Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

 

References and links

http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/

Theodore Martin, The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, Vol. I.

http://albert.rct.uk

26 November 2019

Paper trails of Orphic tales: Harrison Birtwistle manuscripts at the British Library

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Frankie Perry, who recently completed a PhD placement with Music Collections, introduces a newly-catalogued collection of Birtwistle manuscripts at the British Library.

The British Library’s collection of manuscripts by Sir Harrison Birtwistle (MS Mus. 1778) is now fully catalogued and searchable online. The modest collection was acquired in 2012, and comprises a miscellany of sketches, drafts, and papers given by the composer to his son in 1989. That same year, Birtwistle entered into an exclusive living archive agreement with the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, which continues to acquire his manuscripts as they emerge. The British Library’s material is particularly important for the study of Birtwistle’s works from the 1940s to the late 1980s however, many of which are not represented in the Sacher archive. It is invaluable therefore in filling in many significant gaps in our knowledge of the genesis of many of his major, early works. In 2015, David Beard published a useful initial inventory of the British Library materials,[1] but much extra detail (and a few additional discoveries) can now be perused in the Library’s handlist.

Photograph of Harrison Birtwistle drinking
Birtwistle in 1973. Photographer unknown. MS Mus. 1778/5/1

Coinciding with the end of the first fully-staged production of Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus since its première in 1986, which ran at English National Opera in October and November this year, the rest of this blogpost gives an insight into material relating to this ‘world-defining’ collaboration between Birtwistle, Peter Zinovieff, and Barry Anderson.[2] The premiere of The Mask of Orpheus in 1986 (also by ENO at the Coliseum) was ‘triumphantly successful’,[3] but the work’s extreme narrative and logistical complexity has meant that, since then, most organisations have found the idea of putting it on to be ‘imponderable’.[4] Despite a 33-year absence from the operatic stage, the sense of monumentality associated with the work has endured, and its position as a major landmark of modernist opera has been bolstered by the substantial scholarly attention it has already received, including a dedicated monograph by Jonathan Cross.[5]

The Mask of Orpheus sketches

The Sacher Foundation holds most of the extant sketches for the opera (over 1100 folios), but the BL’s collection is also substantial, totalling over 550 relevant folios. Several sketches are dated, which is helpful for a work that had such a protracted gestation (famously, much of the work for Acts I and II took place in 1973-5, but progress was halted in the later 1970s and recommenced 1981-3.). It quickly becomes apparent that the material here is weighted towards the earlier stages of the collaborative and compositional process. Indeed, one major revelation of the BL’s Mask of Orpheus collection is that, contrary to Birtwistle’s recollections, some material for Act 3 was begun as early as March 1974 – it was previously assumed that the later music was planned and composed after the hiatus.[6]

The majority of sketches are held across two A4 folders (unlike the BL’s extensive Gawain material, which is mostly on A2-sized paper). The first contains 193 folios of plans, sketches, and instructions, most of which have either been identified against the score, or contain written planning relating to particular aspects of composition. This includes:

  • 27 ff. of detailed, continuous sketch work for the First Allegorical Flower of Reason (Act 1, Scene 2).
  • 10 ff. of sketches for the electronic music in Act 3.
  • 67 ff. of miscellaneous sketches and jottings relating to identifiable passages in the opera, including notes on phonetics for the invented language; material for Apollo’s interjections; text-setting sketches.
  • 38 ff. of assorted written instructions and notes on instrumentation.
  • 44 ff. of annotated rhythmic and structural planning for various sections, some of which is dated April 1974.

The material in the second A4 folder remains, for the most part, in the order in which it was received by the BL; however, papers have been grouped according to clear divisions of sketch type. Indeed, all the early stages of sketch typically undertaken by Birtwistle can be found here: extensive numerical workings and schemes, as well as separate sets of sketches showing pitch, rhythm, and structural work.[7] There are also various documents showing Peter Zinovieff’s work on libretto, structure, and conceptual design, as well as brief correspondence between him and Birtwistle. Pictured here is part of a typescript fragment of an early version of the libretto, which looks much more like a conventional libretto than the beautiful graphic one eventually published by Universal Edition! A further A2 volume contains assorted sketches by Zinovieff and Birtwistle, including notes on dramatis personae and a 16-folio form scheme for Act 3.

For listeners delighted by the distinctive early-80s-IRCAM electronic music that flows through and punctuates The Mask of Orpheus, the extensive schemes and plans for this dimension of the opera may disappoint when seen on paper, so far short they fall in giving an impression of these passages’ sonic reality. They do, however, give a useful impression of what Birtwistle had on paper before Barry Anderson – the composer and electronic musician who realised these spine-tingling ‘electronic “magic harp’’’[8] sounds – did his magic. Anderson’s own technical sketches have been examined in discussions of his work on the project, but Birtwistle’s structural blueprints help by providing a much fuller understanding of the basis for the pair’s experimentation at IRCAM (in Paris, 1981-2).[9] Sketches are present for some of the mime episodes (Allegorical Flowers of Reason and Passing Clouds of Abandon); notations sketch out Apollo’s interjections; and doodled lines indicate the fading in and out of the Auras.


Fragment of sketch for electronic interlude in Birtwistle's 'The Mask of Orpheus'
Part of a schematic sketch for the electronic interludes, MS Mus. 1778/1/1

Messy papers!

It is well known that Birtwistle has tended to store his sketches somewhat haphazardly, and this was reflected in the condition in which the collection arrived at the BL. While some acquisitions from composers need little intervention, the Birtwistle collection raised several questions about the extent to which we should preserve incongruencies in a received arrangement. For instance, amidst a pile of loose Orpheus sketches dated 1974 was an undated page with the instruction ‘a stylised sheep’s ‘baa”: the sheep belong to the “mechanical pastoral” chamber opera Yan Tan Tethera, which was premiered shortly after Orpheus in 1986 but begun much closer to that time. As such, there is no plausible creative reason for the odd page of Yan Tan Tethera to appear amongst this early Orpheus material; these anomalies speak more to messy storage than to anything worthy of archival preservation. (A note is made on the catalogue nonetheless!).

Front cover of music manuscript sketchbook
Pristine manuscript notebooks containing sketches for 'Gawain', MS Mus. 1778/1/3

Sometimes, of course, folders or books containing material relating to multiple pieces shed light upon previously unknown connections and timelines. Two manuscript notebooks (pictured) catalogued under Gawain are particularly interesting in this regard. Here, between pages containing detailed sketches of Morgan le Fay’s lines that open Gawain, we find pages clearly relating to Four Songs of Autumn, 4 Poems of Jaan Kaplinski, and an abandoned chamber orchestration of Deowa, in such close proximity as to confound accepted chronologies of these works’ commencement.[10]

However, the preservation of such creative intermingling afforded by spiral binding is a rare luxury in the Birtwistle collection. More often, the chaotic presentation of much of the material – replete with illogically-grouped sheaves of loose papers crammed into disintegrating folders – required tricky archival decisions to be made in order to tease out a coherent cataloguing strategy. The collection does include one notebook full of Orpheus material, dating from Birtwistle’s time as a Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College in 1973-4, but this has problems of its own. Unlike the refreshingly pristine Gawain notebooks pictured left, the pink specimen below had to be quarantined at the BL because of its perturbing smell.[11] Fortunately, the mould and rust damage does not obscure much of the sketch material, which comprises complex numerical and rhythmic schemes typical of Birtwistle’s early-stage compositional process.

Front cover of mouldy music manuscript sketchbook
Mouldy notebook (prior to conservation treatment), containing sketches for 'The Mask of Orpheus', MS Mus. 1778/1/1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside mouldy music manuscript sketchbook
Inside the mouldy notebook

 

Other myths and landscapes

Finally, it’s worth giving a brief overview of items elsewhere in the collection which might be considered pre-histories of aspects of Birtwistle’s work on The Mask of Orpheus. As mentioned previously, the bulk of archive materials reside in Basel, and most individual compositions are at best patchily represented in the BL. For instance, the most direct topical predecessor for The Mask of Orpheus is the Birtwistle/Zinovieff collaboration Nenia: The Death of Orpheus (for soprano, 3 bass clarinets, crotales and piano, premiered by Jane Manning and Matrix in 1970), and for this piece the BL holds just one single musical sketch. It’s a good one, though: a folded piece of A3 graph paper shows the name ‘Euridice’ split into syllables across the page, encapsulating neatly the bold fragmentation of voice and language – and the ritualization of names and naming – that pervades the finished score.

Robert Adlington has pointed to Down by the Greenwood Side and Bow Down as examples of projects prior to and contemporary with The Mask of Orpheus in which the matter – and manner – of (re)telling tales is itself thematised.[12] In these cases, traditional ballads are presented in multiple forms. Bow Down (1977) is among the theatre music present in the BL’s collection dating from Birtwistle’s time working with directors Tony Harrison, Peter Hall, Harold Pinter, mask designer Jocelyn Herbert, and others at the National Theatre – these projects occupied much of his time during the late 1970s while work on The Mask of Orpheus was on pause, and had a considerable impact on his music-theatrical style. Elsewhere in the collection are scores, sketches, and doodles dating from Birtwistle’s time teaching music at Wardour Castle and Cranbourne Chase schools (1960-65), include scores for school plays that used stock characters like ‘The Good One’ and ‘The Green Man’. Such figures, in their continual adaptability and appeal, are clear precursors for much of Birtwistle’s later work, not least in his operatic oeuvre.

Of course, myth and landscape – pastoral and violent – have long been central to Birtwistle’s creative imagination. It is worth mentioning the extensive sketches at the BL for Earth Dances, which was premiered the same year as The Mask of Orpheus and might be considered a wordless apotheosis of some of its themes. Looking further back, the earliest pieces in the BL’s collection demonstrate that even as a teenager, he was writing music inspired by natural landmarks steeped in folklore. Drafts of his ‘Dance of the Pendle Witches’ and ‘Pendle Mystery’, both dated 1949, evoke the looming Pendle Hill of his native Lancashire, much like Silbury Air of 1977 conjures Silbury Hill, the ancient mound in the Wiltshire countryside that Birtwistle would later call home.

Photograph of Pendle Hill, Lancashire
Birtwistle's hills: Pendle Hill, Lancashire ('Dance of the Pendle Witches' and 'Pendle Mystery', 1949). Photo by Charles Rawding. CC BY-SA 2.0.
 
Photograph of Silbury Hill, Wiltshire
Silbury Hill in Wiltshire ('Silbury Air', 1977). Photo by Greg O'Beirne. CC BY-SA 3.0.

There is so much more to say about this collection that won’t fit into this blog post – you’ll have to explore it for yourself!

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Frankie Perry is completing a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2018-19, she undertook a PhD Placement at the British Library, primarily working on the collections of Harrison Birtwistle, Elisabeth Lutyens, and Cornelius Cardew. She tweets at @Frankles23.

 

References

[1] David Beard, ‘Appendix: A selected inventory of Birtwistle manuscripts acquired by the British Library in 2013’, in Beard, Kenneth Gloag, and Nicholas Jones, eds., Harrison Birtwistle Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 304-309.

[2] John Rockwell, review in The New York Times (22 May 1986).

[3] Robert Samuels, ‘The Mask of Orpheus’, Tempo, 158 (1986), 41-44: 41.

[4] Jonathan Cross interview. Cross also notes the consideration of agent Andrew Rosner that it was Peter Hall’s particularly ‘elaborate’ conception of the opera’s production that led to its reputation as being prohibitively expensive to stage. See p. 35, FN 72.

[5] Cross, Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus (Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate, 2009); David Beard incorporated sketches from the Silas Birtwistle collection in his extended discussion in Harrison Birtwistle’s Operas and Music Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). See also Robert Adlington, The Music of Harrison Birtwistle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), and other literature cited in this blog post.

[6] Beard picked up on this in Harrison Birtwistle’s Operas and Music Theatre, 84-85.

[7] Beard has studied Birtwistle’s sketches and working process extensively. For an introduction, see Beard, “The life of my music’: What the sketches tell us’, in Harrison Birtwistle Studies, 120-174.

[8] Birtwistle in conversation with Tom Hall, 2013. Cited in Hall, ‘Before The Mask: Birtwistle’s electronic music collaborations with Peter Zinovieff’, in Beard, Gloag, and Jones, eds., Harrison Birtwistle Studies, 63-94: 89.

[9] On Anderson’s work, see Robert Samuels, ‘The Mask of Orpheus’ (1986); Nigel Osborne, ‘Orpheus in Paris’, in the programme booklet for The Mask of Orpheus at English National Opera (1986), as well as commentary in Cross (2009), Beard (2012), and Hall (2015).

[10] For sure, order of pages in a notebook does not necessarily imply chronology of work; however, the strong similarities in handwriting, pencil weight, and sketch type in this case strongly suggest consecutive attention to three or more works.

[11] Poor paper condition is not unique to the BL’s Birtwistle collection: Jonathan Cross points out a mouldy shadow on a Sacher Foundation photocopy reproduced in his book: ‘a consequence of the fact that the composer used to store his materials in a damp cellar’. See Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus, 48.

[12] Adlington, The Music of Harrison Birtwistle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 15.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

05 November 2019

Boosey & Hawkes: first series of business archive now available

The archive of Boosey & Hawkes at the British Library represents, by volume, probably the largest distinct addition ever made to the Music Collections, comprising almost a century’s worth of historical records of one of Britain’s foremost music publishing firms.  The ongoing cataloguing of this substantial collection is a correspondingly sizeable undertaking, but a significant milestone has just been reached: the first major series of business files, the Directors’ papers (MS Mus.  1813/2/1), is now fully catalogued and available to Readers.

Material from the archive of Boosey & Hawkes
Material from the archive of Boosey & Hawkes, MS Mus. 1813

Boosey & Hawkes was formed in October 1930 by a merger between Boosey & Co. and Hawkes & Son, both established London family firms engaged in the publication of sheet music and the manufacture of musical instruments.  Boosey & Co. had been founded as a bookshop by Thomas Boosey in the late eighteenth century, achieved prominence in the late Victorian age as publishers of popular ballads and organisers of the London Ballad Concerts, developed a line in manufacturing woodwind instruments and cultivated a speciality in educational music.  Hawkes & Son, meanwhile, had, since its establishment in 1865, built up a reputation in music for military and brass band, as well as in the manufacture of brass and reed instruments.

Photograph of Leslie Boosey
Leslie Boosey (1887–1979). © Boosey & Hawkes.

An element of more direct competition emerged over the course of the 1920s, during which Hawkes in particular began an expansion into serious, or art music (as distinct from popular and band music).  Board meetings of the Performing Right Society gave each of the companies’ respective chairmen, Leslie Boosey (1887–1979) and Ralph Hawkes (1898–1950), the opportunity to observe the other closely, first as a competitor, and then as a potential fellow in partnership.  They evidently realised that their rather different characters complemented each other: Hawkes, a keen yachtsman, was bold and impulsive, whereas Boosey was the steadier and more diplomatic of the pair.  ‘He was the engine, I was the brakes’, Boosey recalled of his colleague. [1]

Photograph of Ralph Hawkes
Ralph Hawkes (1898–1950). © Boosey & Hawkes.

The expansion into serious music lost no momentum after the merger.  It bore fruit not only in contracts with prominent British composers such as Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs and Gerald Finzi, but also in the acquisition of publishing rights for major international composers including Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aaron Copland, Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók.  In 1938, Boosey & Hawkes secured the publishing expertise of Ernst Roth, Erwin Stein and Alfred Kalmus when the Nazi Anschluss eliminated their positions at the Universal Edition publishing house in Vienna, and in 1943 acquired the rights to much of the catalogue of the Fürstner house, including the operas and ballets of Richard Strauss.

Correspondingly, the firm cultivated growth overseas.  From the American agency already shared by the two old firms a new subsidiary, Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., was founded.  Hawkes’ outpost in Paris was also developed and expanded, while branches were established in Canada, South Africa, Australia and Germany, and agencies set up in various South American cities.  There were even contracts involving Communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: just before the Cold War set in entirely, Alfred Kalmus oversaw the formation of the Anglo-Soviet Music Press, a subsidiary company with the right to distribute English-language editions of new Soviet music.  By the mid-twentieth century, Boosey & Hawkes was an international name.

Amid all this, though, the firm’s spiritual home remained the London headquarters at 295, Regent Street.   It was mainly here that the present archive was accumulated.  The newly-catalogued Directors’ papers record the activities of various directors of Boosey & Hawkes, and of the firm more generally.  They include the files of Dr. Ernst Roth (1896–1971) Managing Director from 1945 to 1964, and of Leslie Boosey himself , some dating from before the 1930 merger.  Internal and external correspondence, memoranda and reports concern all aspects of the printing, publishing and performance of music.  There is correspondence with the general public, schools, musical groups and orchestras (both amateur and professional), festivals, broadcasters, other publishing houses in Britain and abroad, and Boosey & Hawkes' own overseas branches: the correspondents range from the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra to the Horlicks Amateur Dramatic Society.

Photograph of Ernst Roth
Dr. Ernst Roth, Managing Director 1945–1964. © Boosey & Hawkes.

As might be expected, the archive also contains extensive correspondence with a great number of composers and musicians: the names Eric Coates, Benjamin Britten, Ivor Novello, Igor Stravinsky, Adrian Boult, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Poston, Bohuslav Martinů, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ethel Smyth, Cyril Scott and Andrzej Panufnik are barely representative of the whole list.  The letters often allow great insight into the relationship between composer and publisher – often, too, the tact and grace sometimes required to maintain it – and the various happenings and topics of conversation that require the publisher’s attention: timpani for Khachaturian, Stravinsky’s Cadillac, John Ireland’s dentist, and the ‘7,550 Cigarettes’, ‘17 bottles of Gin’ and ‘29 bottles of Whisky’ ordered as Christmas gifts for the Music Department in 1964.  As a whole, the Boosey & Hawkes archive preserves a copious and detailed and record of ‘the Business of Music’, as Ernst Roth called it: the ever-changing work of the music publisher at the strange intersection between intangible art and hard commerce.

[1] Wallace, Helen, Boosey & Hawkes: the publishing story (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 2007), p. 2.

Dominic Newman

Manuscripts Cataloguer

17 October 2019

Upcoming Elgar events at the British Library

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We are holding two events in November to celebrate Elgar’s music and the rich collections of his works at the Library.

On Friday 8 November there will be an evening concert with pianist Iain Farrington, featuring works by Elgar that are represented in the Library’s collection, throwing light on the composer’s creative process and unearthing some surprises! 

To find out more details and to book a place please visit the British Library website here:

https://www.bl.uk/events/edward-elgar-from-manuscript-to-performance

On Monday 25 November there will be a study day focussing on the sources of Elgar’s works.

Photograph of Edward Elgar composing music at his desk
Edward Elgar. Photo by May Grafton

Elgar’s sources, ranging from manuscript sketches and scores, printed music, letters and recordings, reveal important information about his compositional practices and the origin of some of his most famous works, such as the Enigma variations, his concertos, symphonies, and oratorios. They also tell us important stories about his personal and professional life, his close family relationships and friendships, as well as his remarkable personality. Speakers specialising in the music of Elgar and Music curators will discuss his compositional practices and aspects of his life and reception.

Programme

10.00-10.20: Registration 

10.20-10.30: Welcome and Introduction to the day – Richard Chesser (Head of Music, British Library)

10.30-11.15: Keynote – Julian Rushton (Professor Emeritus, University of Leeds)

11.15-11.45: The Elgar Birthplace Museum – Michael Messenger

11.45-12.00: Comfort break 

12.00-12.45: The Elgar Sources: an overview – Professor Dan Grimley (University of Oxford)

12.45-14.00 – Lunch [not provided]

14.00-14.40: Elgar recordings – Jonathan Summers (British Library)

14.40-15.30: Discoveries in Elgar Sources – Speakers: John Norris, David Lloyd-Jones

15.30-15.50: Comfort break 

15.50-16.30: Biographical Issues in Elgar Scholarship – Chair: Dr Jo Bullivant (University of Oxford)

Speakers: Jo Bullivant, Dr Sophie Fuller (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance), Dr Nalini Ghuman (Mills College), Julian Rushton

16.30-17.00: Future plans on the Elgar sources at the British Library – Richard Chesser and Chris Scobie (British Library)

To book a place please visit the British Library website here:

https://www.bl.uk/events/celebrating-elgar

We hope to see you there!

 

10 October 2019

Additional Discovering Music content published!

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We recently published additional content on our Discovering Music: early 20th century space:

Articles

Three additional articles are now featured on the space: Shadow and light in war and peace: Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time written by Oliver Soden, Holst and India written by Nalini Ghuman and Promoting New Music in Britain written by Annika Forkert.

Opening of Discovering Music article Promoting New Music in Britain

Collection items

Nine additional collection items have been created to accompany the newly published articles and three further ones have been added to the existing articles on British Composers in the early 20th century, The Second Viennese School and Music and the Creative Process: Elgar’s Third Symphony. The collection items feature autograph manuscripts and letters by Michael Tippett, Gustav Holst, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Edward Elgar.

The title page of the published vocal score of Berg's Wozzeck
Alban Berg: Wozzeck. Vocal score. Shelfmark: H.3455.d. © Public domain.

 

Titlepage of Holst's autograph manuscript of Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda
Gustav Holst: Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda. Shelfmark: Add MS 57873, f.2r. © Public domain.

People pages

An additional People page has been added to the space for the composer Michael Tippett.

Discovering Music People page of Michael Tippett

About Discovering Music

Discovering Music: early 20th century is a free online learning resource that provides unprecedented access to the Library’s music collections.

This phase of the project features over 100 20th-century treasures from the British Library’s collection including sketches, first editions, letters, concert programmes, sound recordings and photographs. 

Reflecting a period of intense musical development, the site reveals the ways in which key musicians of the period captured the world around them by rejecting inherited traditions and experimenting with new forms and themes. The site includes fascinating manuscripts by, among others, Benjamin Britten, Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. Users can also browse articles, information on specific musical works, and teachers’ notes designed to support the study of music at GCSE and A Level. With this material the Library hopes to illuminate the social, political and cultural context in which this music was written.

28 August 2019

From Music to Meme (1): Musical Expressions of National and Regional Identity on Postage Stamps

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The word ‘stamp’ certainly brings music to a Philatelist’s ear, yet they are also literally a musical medium for the masses!  Postal authorities worldwide have issued countless postage stamps incorporating reproductions from musical manuscripts, or notations into their designs. Including other stamps depicting instruments, composers and famous musicians, the British Library’s Philatelic Collections are an invaluable resource for cultural historians, manuscript specialists and musicologists.

In  ‘Banal Nationalism’ (Sage, London 1996) Michael Billig argues that an underlying, non-extremist, endemic type of national identity is formed by everyday encounters with representations of authority on official and consumable objects including coins, stamps, paper money and flags. This phenomenon stems from their mechanical mass reproduction, widespread dissemination and consumption making stamps an excellent meme-complex for transmitting multiple memes or units of cultural expression from one person or group to another. National anthems are a popular way for nations to eulogise their history, traditions and struggles musically since the nineteenth century, a period coinciding with the ‘invention’ of adhesive postage stamps. Consequently, it should come as no surprise to learn that anthems form a very popular design theme on stamps.

Many designs juxtapose the music and lyrics alongside a range of national symbols to create a multi-tiered symbolic identity. On 6 June 1983, the People’s Republic of China issued a 20f stamp commemorating the Sixth National People’s Congress designed by Wan Weisheng depicting music and Chinese text by Tian Han and Nie Er for the national anthem, ‘Yìyǒngjūn Jìnxíngqǔ’ below the national flag (Figure 1). Taiwan adopted a similar format for its $2.50 stamp commemorating the country’s 60th National Day issued on 10 October 1971. Designed by Yen Ki Shih and printed by the Government Printing Works in Tokyo, it depicts the music and lyrics for Taiwan’s national anthem, ‘Zhōnghuá Mínguó guógē’ beside the national flag overlaying a map of the island overlaid by the music and text (Figure 2).

1983 stamp depicting music and Chinese text
Figure 1. Henke Collection. China.
1971 stamp depicting the music and lyrics for Taiwan’s national anthem
Figure 2. Universal Postal Union (UPU) Collection: Taiwan.

Uruguay issued a 15p stamp designed by A. Medina on 19 May 1971 to commemorate the National Anthem depicting a few bars of music by Francisco Jose Deballi with Francisco Acuna de Figueroa’s lyrics beside the nation’s armorial bearings. The stamp’s selected colour scheme is identical to those adopted upon Uruguay’s flag (Figure 3).

1971 stamp depicting music and lyrics from the Uruguay's national anthem
Figure 3. UPU Collection: Uruguay.

On 25 October 1980, Costa Rica issued two stamps commemorating the national anthem. On this occasion, each design incorporates a portrait to embed the artist and music into the national symbolic and ritual narrative. The 1c stamp depicts a portrait of lyric writer, Jose Maria Zweledon Brenes (Figure 4) whilst the 10c stamp depicts the composer Manuel Maria Gutierrez whom President General Juan Rafael Mora allegedly imprisoned until he had completed the anthem score (Figures 5)!

1980 stamp depicting the music of Costa Rica's national anthem with the portrait of Jose Maria Zweledon Brenes in front of it
Figure 4. UPU Collection: Costa Rica.
1980 stamp depicting the music of Costa Rica's national anthem with the portrait of Manuel Maria Gutierrez in front of it
Figure 5. UPU Collection: Costa Rica.

Liberia issued a 6c stamp commemorating the inauguration of the Antoinette Tubman Child Welfare Foundation on 25 November 1957, depicting a group of children singing in the foreground, symbolising the nation’s future. Behind them is a song-sheet with Olmsted Luca’s music for the national anthem, juxtaposed next to a depiction of the Foundation’s headquarters (Figure 6)

1957 stamp depicting a group of children singing in the foreground and the music for Liberia's national anthem in the background
Figure 6. UPU Collection: Liberia.

K. K. Karmacharya’s designs for Nepal’s 18 February 1974 National Day Issue incorporate elements of the national anthem. The 25p stamp illustrates the Devanagari script for the old national anthem ‘Rastriya Gaan(Figure 7), whilst the 1r stamp depicts the musical score overlaying a Nepalese instrument, possibly a Sarangi (Figure 8). The anthem changed in 2006 following political unrest culminating in the abolishment of the monarchy consequently stamps depicting the old anthem are very political.

stamp from Nepal illustrating the Devanagari script for the old national anthem ‘Rastriya Gaan’
Figure 7. UPU Collection: Nepal.
stamp depicting music overlaying a Nepalese instrument
Figure 8. UPU Collection: Nepal.

On 1 December 1976, Barbados issued a set of four stamps celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Independence, all designed by PAD Studios. The 25c value depicts the anthem’s musical score and text with a range of wind and percussion instruments indicating the music should be performed (Figure 9). The $1 stamp design portrays musicians at the Independence Day Parade where the national anthem would have been part of the performance, demonstrating how anthems are an established component of state performance and ritual (Figure 10).

1976 stamp depicting the Barbados national anthem score with wind and percussion instruments surrounding it
Figure 9. UPU Collection: Barbados.
1976 stamp depicting musicians at the Barbados Independence Day Parade
Figure 10. UPU Collection: Barbados.

On 16 May 1972, Venezuela released a 5b stamp as part of their ‘Venezuela in the Americas’ Issue. It illustrates the anthem’s music overlaying flags for every nation in the Americas and Caribbean (Figure 11). The design uses the anthem’s music to reinforce national identity whilst forming part of a wider international community. Some national stamps incorporate music in their designs recognising regional identities. On 28 April 1981, Spain issued a 12p stamp commemorating Galician Autonomy, depicting the music from the ‘Himno Galego’ overlaying a map of the region above Galicia’s armorial bearings (Figure 12).

1972 stamp from Venezuela illustrating the anthem’s score overlaying flags for every nation in the Americas and Caribbean
Figure 11. UPU Collection: Venezuela.
1981 stamp depicting music from the ‘Himno Galego’ overlaying a map of the region above Galicia’s armorial bearings
Figure 12. UPU Collection: Spain.

Finally, in 1973 the Kingdom of Bhutan issued a set of seven ‘talking stamps,’ which are playable miniature records comprising the national anthem, folk music and historic narratives. Predominantly designed for the collecting community, this issue provides an excellent example of how manufacturing technologies are able to incorporate audio recordings into stamp design (Figure 13).

1973 stamp from the Kingdom of Bhutan depicting a miniature record
Figure 13. UPU Collection: Bhutan.

Postage stamps are therefore an important research resource illustrating the cultural transmission of national anthems across the national and international stage.  The design elements also incorporate a range of visual and mnemonic techniques to represent sound, music and national identity. The majority of them are musically accurate, leading one to query whether developments with MEI, OMR, TEI, Geo-Referencing and cataloguing technologies can be utilised on stamps to generate big data to support such a thesis. One hopes specialists reading this blog will be stimulated enough to develop these ideas further.

Richard Scott Morel

Curator, British Library’s Philatelic Collections

30 July 2019

Talking about research collaboration: the first British Library Digital Musicology day

On Monday 1 July, the British Library held the study day Digital Musicology and Libraries: Challenges and Opportunities. The aim of the study day was to present different perspectives on Digital Musicology projects, developments and needs, and explore ways Librarians, Musicologists and Digital Musicologists can work together to support each other. The day also intended to inspire attendees to consider collaborating with the British Library on future research projects.

Digital Musicology study day welcome slide
Digital Musicology study day. Photo by Amelie Roper

The keynote lecture was given by Dr Kevin Page, Senior Researcher, Oxford e-Research Centre. In an overview of the methods, temptations and experiences of digital musicology, he emphasised the importance of knowing your sources, knowing your methods, and recognising that there is information that will not be retrieved because of the limitations of these. He urged us to "embrace imperfect data"! The desire for perfect data is a temptation, but the perfect dataset does not exist. Instead we should use what exists, being wise to its limitations, and embrace simultaneous perspectives and encodings, rather than expecting one approach to give all the answers.

Speakers at the Digital Musicology Study Day
Digital Musicology study day. Photo by Amelie Roper

Throughout the day speakers introduced their specific projects or general approaches to working with different types of digital musicological data.

The Libraries’ perspective session opened with Richard Chesser, Head of Music at the British Library, who gave an overview of projects that the British Library has been involved with in Digital Musicology, including Early Music Online, A Big Data History of Music, The Delius Catalogue of Works and Discovering Music, as well as content the Library is making available through digitisation and other routes that can be used in Digital Musicology research.

Dr Andrew Hankinson, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford talked about Digital Musicology activities at the University of Oxford and specifically about the advantages of the IIIF technology (International Image Interoperability Framework) for conducting research with digitised images of Libraries’ collection items.

Speakers at the Digital Musicology Study Day
Digital Musicology study day. Photo by Amelie Roper

Dr Christopher Hilton of the Britten-Pears Foundation described the archival cataloguing system used by the Archive & Library, which includes work-level information, and the plans to open this up to a wider audience by making archival descriptions available as linked data. He gave interesting insights into the kind of information held: for example, the financial records of Britten and Pears, usually the dullest part of a personal archive, are revealing about how carefully and creatively the financial affairs of a gay couple had to be managed in the era before the de-criminalisation of homosexuality.

Speakers at the Digital Musicology Study Day
Digital Musicology study day. Photo by Amelie Roper

Katharine Hogg, of the Gerald Coke Handel Collection, The Foundling Museum, gave an overview of digital activities undertaken, and of planned collaborations. One type of material which the Gerald Coke Handel Collection is keen to acquire is datasets and preparatory material brought together for PhDs and publications; valuable research data which tends to disappear once the work based on it has been published.

Speakers at the Digital Musicology Study Day
Digital Musicology study day. Photo by Amelie Roper

The Academic Partners’ perspective session included presentations by Dr Emmanouil Benetos (Queen Mary, University of London), Dr Joanna Bullivant (University of Oxford), Professor Stephen Rose (Royal Holloway, University of London), and Professor Tim Crawford (Goldsmiths, University of London). Speakers talked about Digital Musicology projects they undertook in collaboration with the British Library (Digital Music Lab, Digital Delius, A Big Data History of Music, and F-Tempo respectively), and gave their perspective on the challenges and benefits of collaborative projects.

The session on Digital Archives explored challenges and opportunities around born-digital archives, as well as the Library’s digitised sound archives. Music Curators discussed recent steps that the department has undertaken to acquire born-digital archives of composers, whilst Jonathan Pledge, Curator, Contemporary Archives, Politics and Public Life at the British Library, described the methods recently developed in the Library for acquiring and making available personal digital archives of writers and scientists. Born-digital files are acquired and processed via a six-stage workflow[1].

Amelie Roper, Research Development Manager at the British Library talked about the British Library’s annual research report and the ways academics and researchers can collaborate through outlining the Library’s research collaboration process.

Some themes emerged from the day. Recurring challenges were rights clearance, sustainability of projects, differing priorities and expectations of libraries, researchers and funding bodies, technical and institutional challenges (for example difficulty in hosting non-standard software), and staff skills gaps and time constraints.

It was inspiring, however, to hear from projects exploiting opportunities. For example, IIIF technology can bring images and datasets together, so a digital copy of a manuscript can be viewed side by side with an interpretation or commentary coming from a completely different source. MEI (Music Encoding Initiative) and OMR (Optical Music Recognition) techniques can be used to enable semantically meaningful full-text analysis of certain types of digitised music, for example 16th-century lute and vocal music, resulting in new work identifications. Other opportunities arise from combining the researchers' ability to focus on a single project with libraries' expertise in the curation of metadata.

Anecdotal evidence was that libraries and researchers can work positively together to overcome challenges, and unlock new musical knowledge.

Caroline Shaw, British Library

[1] Further information in: Jonathan Pledge and Eleanor Dickens (2018): ‘Process and progress: working with born-digital material in the Wendy Cope Archive at the British Library’, Archives and Manuscripts Volume 46, Issue. 1, pages. 59-69.