Every now and then over the course of this academic year, as a member of the Pendlebury team makes their way through the stacks re-shelving or searching for a volume, they come across one of myth and legend’s most fearless of creatures…
Okay, maybe not quite the real thing, but it is true that tiny, origami dragons have been popping up across the library waiting to be found. It’s certainly been a welcome game of hide-and-seek for library staff, and these tiny paper critters have found a home at the self-service desk in the main entrance to keep an eye on the comings and goings of our collections.
Getting into the mythical spirit, I thought I’d have a search through the combined music collections at the University and see if I could find anything else that was dragon-related, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of dragon content I found.
Given Cambridge’s status as a center for academic excellence and rigor, particularly in the study of music, I was delighted to first come across a copy of Peter Yarrow’s 1963 hit ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’ arranged for twelve handbells, CUL A1988.138. I’ve yet to hear of a Cambridge University Handbell Consort, but if anyone fancies pitching it to the Centre for Music Performance you’ve got at least one piece to get you started.
Following the thread of academic rigour, I found a facsimile reproduction of Sevilla 5-I-43 and Paris N.A.Fr 4379, the Seville Chansonnier which came up incorrectly in iDiscover as edited by ‘Dragon Plamenac’, as opposed to the esteemed Croatian musicologist and composer, Dragan Plamenac…I will be correcting the iDiscover record this week, but for anyone interested, the classmark is CUL MR472.a.01.7. Don’t be expecting any dragons though, just lots of 15th century polyphony, which is less terrifying but probably just as flammable. (Digital images can be found on the DIAMM repository, https://www.diamm.ac.uk/sources/741/#/)
If anyone reading is trying to improve their woodwind playing, we have some wonderful compositions by Joan Swift and Marjorie Smale for Grades 2-3 on clarinet, flute, oboe and recorder. The titles of the pieces, ‘Here be dragons‘, ‘Neighbourhood dragons‘, ‘Domesticated dragons‘ and ‘Dragons at large’ lay out what can be interpreted as either a friendly tale of local dragons settling into a life of suburban bliss, or an attempt at capture and domestication gone tragically wrong – I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Speaking of domesticating dragons, one of my favourite films, which is admittedly fuelled by intense nostalgia is the 2010 film How To Train Your Dragon. Now one of the most beloved animated film franchises over the course of the last decade, nominated for Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Score, I was pleased to find that we have an edition of John Powell’s original score for the first film, CUL, M310.a.202.1. One of the most famous tracks from the score is ‘Test Drive’, when the main character, Hiccup, finally manages to take Toothless the dragon for his first flight:
Next on my list of discoveries is The Snapdragon Quadrilles, written for piano by CH.R. Marriott, published by J.B. Cramer & Co., in 1873, which features a lithograph illustration of a dragon sat upon a Christmas table. Referring not to the flower that frequents English gardens, Antirrhinum (known colloquially as snapdragons, toadflax or dogflower), but to a popular Christmas Eve parlour game, Snap-dragon – also known as Flap-dragon – was a game developed in the 16th century but played well into the early 20th. Traditionally played by children, but now left to historical obscurity at the behest of parents and fire departments alike, brandy was heated and placed in a shallow bowl alongside dried fruits and nuts (typically, raisins), and set alight. As described in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the players must then “catch raisins out of burning brandy, and extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them”. The music depicting the pursuits of these darling little arsonists can be found in CUL A1873.78.
Returning to contemporary art music, I finish off my dragon journey with Chinese-American composer Chen Yi’s 2010 work Dragon Rhyme, for symphony wind band, premiered in 2010 at the Carnegie Hall by the Hartt School of Music Wind Ensemble. Formed of two movements, I. Mysteriously-Harmoniously and II. Energetically, Chen Yi writes, that ‘taking the image of the dragon, which is auspicious, fresh and vivid, the music is layered and multidimensional. It symbolizes the Eastern culture. When it meets the world, it becomes part of the global family’. The full score can be found in CUL MR403.bb.201.320.
I think that’s all for now! I’m heading off into the stacks in search of more dragons, origami or otherwise…
MW
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