Arnold and the thorough-bass

In the context of the Shelf Lives exhibition, the music collections are putting some music collectors in the spotlight, both in the form of physical exhibitions and through blog posts.

Shelf Lives exhibition (18 January - 16 June 2012)

One of these collectors is Franck Thomas Arnold (1861-1940), who studied in Cambridge at Trinity College. Although by profession a German lecturer, he is best known today for his interest in music, and in particular for his studies into the history of music theory and ‘thorough-bass’ technique, nowadays probably better known as basso continuo (subscription only link – your academic or public library may be of help).

It was his seminal work The art of accompaniment from a thorough-bass as practised in the 17th & 18th centuries (London, 1931) – library copies are at M588.b.90.1 and Rb.588.19A.A1 – that established him as a foremost authority in this field, a position he would retain for much of the twentieth century.

F. T. Arnold bookplate

The Arnold Bequest came to Cambridge University Library in 1944. It contained printed scores and books on music as well as manuscripts. It exhibits a very strong link between music research and music collecting.

In 1945, a catalogue of the collection with some bibliographical notes was compiled by the then music librarian D.R.Wakeling. This is of interest in itself, not least for its annotations indicating which items were believed to be unique or significant, and why. The illustration below shows one of the pages from the section of theoretical works on music and it gives a good reflection of the core content of the collection in this area: 18th-century musical treatises on the thoroughbass (or Generalbass or basso continuo).

Page from the Arnold catalogue by D.R. Wakeling

About one third of the works listed in the catalogue are musical treatises and a very small section scores and notebooks in manuscript form. The majority of the collection however (about two thirds) are music scores, almost all of which are 18th-century compositions with basso continuo. An example of such a music score can be seen in Handel’s Solos for a German flute, a hoboy or violin with a thorough bass for the harpsicord or bass violin : being all choice pieces / compos’d by Mr. Handel, curiously fitted to the German flute. (1733). Another copy of this is currently on display in the music corridor exhibition.

Handel. Solos for the German Flute.... London, J. Walsh, ca. 1733. MR380.a.70.3

Handel. Solos for a German flute. London: J. Walsh, ca. 1733. MR380.a.70.3

However, Arnold wasn’t exlusively interested in 18th century works. A very interesting example of an earlier musical treatise is Syntagma musicum by Praetorius. The work in itself is extremely detailed and has excellent documentary value (with lovely illustrations of musical instruments).

Praetorius. Syntagma Musicum. Wittenberg: J. Richter, 1614-1615 and Wolfenbüttel: E. Holwein, 1619. Title page with puzzle date. MR410.c.60.1

There really aren’t that many complete copies of the original edition(s) in existence, so it is with pride that Wakeling describes it in the catalogue as follows: “The complete work is extremely rare. This copy is perfect except that the title-page to Vol. 1 is wanting. [...] An incomplete copy was offered for sale by Otto Haas for £56. This copy was purchased by Arnold from Liepmannsohn for £62 in 1930. On the general title-page the curious puzzle date (1614) is given twice.”

AP

To celebrate, to commemorate : the Scott Polar expedition

In March 1912 The Times ran a series of articles on the race to the South Pole. Robert Falcon Scott’s British expedition had recently been narrowly beaten to the Pole by the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen. While praising Amundsen, The Times maintained a suitably stiff upper lip supporting the British adventurer : Scott was not far behind his fellow explorer, and in any case had not been intending to race him and Scott’s expedition was the more scientific of the two. What no-one realised was that a tragedy was taking place in far off Antarctica.

The Times headline, dated February 11th 1913.

A year later in February 1913 The Times published a grim headline. Trapped by the fearsome Antarctic winter Scott and his men had been cut off. The fellow members of their expedition had thought that they had reached winter quarters and were safely installed there until the beginning of the short southern summer; but in fact as news reached London in April 1912 of the Scott Polar expedition’s scientific achievements to date, Scott and the men who travelled with him to the Pole, were already dead.

Robert Scott’s wife, en route from San Francisco to New Zealand in 1913 to meet her husband, was unaware of his death, and frantic efforts were made to get the news to her as the story broke in newspapers worldwide. Reading the February 1913 account in The Times, I was shocked. Living in an age when global communication is so easy you can forget how very remote is Antarctica. Even today it remains one of the most isolated areas of the world. With its extreme conditions NASA has used the Southern continent as a testing ground for missions to Mars.

Photographed by Josh Landis for the National Science Foundation (U.S. Antarctic Program Photo Library)

So the Scott Polar expedition was a heroic, if misguided failure? Well, no. There were lots of good things that came out of it. Not least the Scott Polar Research Institute. Botanical specimens collected during the expedition backed up the emerging theory of continental drift while specimens of Emperor penguins proved to be hugely important as control specimens proving 50 years later that DDT had polluted the environment of the Antarctic (for more on this see The Telegraph).

Musically there was also to be a legacy from the Antarctic expedition. Ralph Vaughan Williams was commissioned to write the score for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic. He wrote a dazzlingly chilly brittle score which fitted the film perfectly. The music proved to be immediately popular and was swiftly released as a recording, although, apparently not wholly with Vaughan Williams’ blessing (Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams : 1895-1958 / edited by Hugh Cobbe. p. 499 M501.c.200.96).

Following the premiere of the film and haunted by the story of Scott and his men, Vaughan Williams set to reworking the film score and turned it into his seventh symphony, Sinfonia Antartica. Vaughan Williams cheerily admitted to his friend, the publisher Alan Frank of Oxford University Press that the new symphony was “a bit of carpentry…but don’t tell anyone this” (ibid) and dedicated the work to Ernest Irving of Ealing Film Studios, who had been central to the creation of the score for the original film. Irving presented the manuscript score of the symphony to the Royal Philharmonic Society following the premiere by the Halle Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester.

Many of the themes for Sinfonia Antartica are taken directly from the film, with the opening theme of the symphony being one of the central themes throughout the film – as can be noted in the two YouTube clips above – one taken from the film, the other from the first recording of the symphony. The symphony proved to be generally popular with audiences although the large forces needed for performance has meant that it isn’t performed that often : as well as a full symphony orchestra, the work also requires a soprano soloist (an eerily disembodied voice that is surprisingly effective), a small chorus of women’s voices, organ, piano, celesta, and a variety of tuned and untuned percussion including a wind machine.

From left: Oates, Bowers, Scott, Wilson, Evans. Photographed by Harry Bowers, January 1912.

Scott Polar have a number of events to commemorate the anniversary of the expedition, while sledge pulling challenges are taking place around the country including one in Cambridge on March 25th 2012. In the week leading up to the death of Scott and his men – Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Lawrence Oates and Edgar Evans – why not commemorate them by pulling a sledge or by listening to Sinfonia Antartica?

MJ

Lo and behold: all overnight loans ‘labelled’ on catalogue

In case you are not familiar with the concept of overnight loans at the Pendlebury Library of Music I refer you to my previous post on this blog. This is just to announce that, thanks to my colleague Sophie, all of the more than 400 overnight loans at the Pendlebury are now visible on the catalogue.

You might wonder why I’m writing a blog post about this; give me two minutes and I’ll explain. Overnight loans (ONLs) at the Pendlebury Library often are put on ONL status temporarily, or for 1 or 2 terms, so Sophie changes the status on our system and the classmark/shelfmark remains the same. This means that in the brief initial display, if there are several items which fit your search terms, you cannot see whether a copy at a specific classmark is an overnight loan copy.

Newton catalogue (Pendlebury Library of Music), brief display

In the full display you can see the “Notes” field underneath the classmark, and “ta-da” (in F major probably), “Overnight Loan”:

Newton catalogue (Pendlebury Library of Music), full display

If there are multiple copies of one publication, this new “labelling”
is useful too. Again, the brief display does not help in identifying which copies might be borrowable at this very moment.

LibrarySearch (Cambridge University), brief dispaly

However, if you now click through to the full display you will be told which copy is an ordinary loan and which is an overnight loan copy. To illustrate this:

LibrarySearch (Cambridge University), full display

So, next time you see Sophie in the library, and if you have read this, please tell her how much you appreciate her hard work on this.

CG

Bygone concert venues 4: The Pantheon, Oxford Street

Those of you familiar with Oxford Street will know the branch of Marks and Spencer on the South side of the street near Poland Street and may perhaps have wondered why it is called The Pantheon.

Interior of the Pantheon pre-1790 (public domain)

The answer? It was the name of the original building which stood there in the eighteenth century. Designed by the architect James Wyatt (1746 – 1813) and opened in 1772, it was of considerable architectural significance and a detailed description of the construction and development of this £37,000 [about £2.4M today] building can be found in the Survey of London. The suite of rooms had as its focal point a rotunda about 60 feet square over-arched by an elaborate timber and plaster dome similar in style to that of the Pantheon in Rome. Opposite the entrance to the rotunda was a semi-circular platform for the performers.

Charles Burney (one of the Pantheon’s shareholders) is certainly impressed:

“This most elegant building so far surpasses, in beauty, any other place appropriated to public amusements, throughout Europe…” [An account of the musical performances in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon...in commemoration of Handel. London 1785, p. 46; and MR450.b.75.1]

It rapidly became the fashionable place to be seen, and Burney played a role in securing musicians from abroad to perform in the concerts at the Pantheon (an early manifestation of the concert agent perhaps).

Madame Mara by Vigée-Lebrun

Concerts were held once every two weeks during the season and were in fierce competition with those of the Professional Concert and of Salomon at the Hanover Square Rooms nearby. They included performances by two of the most famous singers of the time: Lucrezia Agujari and Madame Mara. Agujari sang in concerts at the Pantheon between 1775 and 1777 and was clearly a gifted coloratura with a range of some three-and-a-half octaves. The German soprano Gertrud Elisabeth Mara was also a colourful character, who gave concerts in London from the mid 1780s.

Perhaps the most extravagant event was the first Handel Commemoration concert on 27th May 1784. Such was the scale of the occasion that Wyatt made alterations to the building including extra seating, a larger platform (to accommodate the 200 hundred performers), a gallery over the entrance to the rotunda housing a Royal box and additional lighting throughout. Burney has left us a detailed description in his “Account…” already mentioned:

Programme for the 1784 Handel commemoration concert in the Pantheon

“The company tonight assembled very early for fear of not gaining admission, and the crowd was excessive…the whole building was so full that not another place could be had on any terms.” [Burney. Op. cit.] 

It wasn’t only musical events which took place at the Pantheon: the 1784 and 1785 seasons  included the demonstration of a hot air balloon by Vincenzo Lunardi, “The Daredevil Aeronaut”. Unhappily, on one occasion in 1785 the balloon was damaged by broken glass in the dome and deflated.

From 1791, the Pantheon enjoyed a brief spell as an opera house following the destruction by fire of the King’s Theatre in Haymarket, only to succumb to a disastrous fire itself two years later. Although Wyatt rebuilt it on a more modest scale, it never really recovered and sank into a genteel decline until it was finally demolished in 1938 to make way for the Art Deco building which we know today as the Marks and Spencer store. So listen carefully as you seek that perfect garment for your recital début this evening in the “new” Pantheon, as you may hear the glorious voice of Gertrud Mara in an aria from Antonio Sacchini‘s Armida echoing through the ether.

SW

Dresdner Kreuzchor

Kreuzkirche Dresden. Photographed by Peter Sebb (C). Reproduced by the permission of the photographer.

Whenever I hear the Choral Evensongs in Kings College Chapel or Trinity College Chapel, I am reminded of the choirs in my hometown Dresden (Germany). In both cities are old traditions of choir music and a high quality of sound.

In Dresden there are also a lot of concerts of famous ensembles and choirs: Dresdner Staatskapelle (Karl Laux, The Dresden Staatskapelle¸1964, Pen: Rb.446.D:D.S1), Dresdner Philharmonie, Dresdner Kapellknaben, Dresdner Kreuzchor and many others.

The history of the Dresdner Kreuzchor (Choir of the Church of the Holy Cross) spans well over seven hundred years (for a historic publication see Hofman, E.H., Capella sanctae crucis der Dresdner Kreuzchor im Geschichte und Gegenwart,1956, Pen: Rb.446.D:D.K1). Today the Dresdner Kreuzchor consists of nearly 150 Crucians aged between 9 and 19. At the beginning of each school year, up to 24 boys are admitted to the 4th grade. Until their Abitur (German a-levels), all of the boys receive their school education at the Evangelisches Kreuzgymnasium (Protestant Evangelical School of the Holy Cross). Following Abitur on completion of grade 12, the Crucians’ membership in the Kreuzchor comes to an end. Being a Crucian means having a wonderful, very often stressful time marked by the concerts and performances of the choir, by the responsibility and dedication of each and every member of the choir, by the time spent at school together, and by personal friendships. Most Crucians live in the Alumnat, the choir’s residence.

Concert Matthäuspassion Dresden, Kreuzkirche | 02.04.2010 | (c) Matthias Krüger, Berlin. Reproduced by the permission of the Dresdner Kreuzkirche.

The choir sings Vespers almost every Saturday at 6 pm in summer and 5 pm in winter and on Sunday at 9:30 am in the Church Service. Altogether the choir performs about 100 times every year, 50 Church Services and Vespers, 10 concerts at their church (including always Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St Matthew Passion and A German Requiem of Brahms) and 40 concerts whilst ‘on tour’.

To the present day the office of the Kreuzkantor (Head of Music) has been one of the most prestigious offices of Protestant church music in Germany. From 1300 until today there have been 28 Kreuzkantoren; two famous, historic figure heads were Julius Otto (1804 – 1877) and Rudolf Mauersberger (1889 – 1971). Otto worked as the head of the choir from 1828 to 1875; his 47 years was the longest period any Head of Music has lead the Kreuzchor. He has wrote a lot of compositions for men’s choir. Mauersberger became director of Kreuzchor in 1930, a position he held until his death. Probably his most famous work is the hymn Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst (How desolate lies the city), written after the destruction of Dresden in February 1945 (YouTube videosampler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZXg8lNH2g). He wrote a Passion music after St Luke (Passionsmusik nach dem Lukasevangelium) and the Dresdner Te Deum.

Following their deaths the estates of both composers were bequeathed to the SLUB Dresden (Saxon State and University Library Dresden, Germany).

Ines outside New Court, St. John's College during her two-month work experience at Cambridge University Library and the Pendlebury Library of Music, Cambridge UK

As a music librarian I work in the SLUB Dresden. For two months (until the end of February) I am spending a vocational internship in the Music Department of the CUL and the Pendlebury Library of Music. I am very glad that I have been able to get an overview about the work/processing of Music and other Departments of the University Library, the Pendlebury Music Library and also of some College Libraries.

Thank you Clemens and all my colleagues for welcoming and for organizing my internship. I am enjoying the wonderful city on the river Cam with the beautiful parks, The Backs, bridges and well known old colleges with their famous music traditions.

Ines Pampel (work experience from 04.01. to 29.02.2012)

Music collections survey results

The music collections survey that took place last term has given us some interesting food for thought. The winners of the prize draw have been contacted in January and I want to say thank you again to all of you who participated.

Bound and unlabelled sheet music at the Music Department, Cambridge University Library - waiting to be fully catalogued and processed. Photographed by Sarah Chapman

According to the survey, the music collections have mostly happy readers, who appreciate a personal touch and friendly, professional services. The collections are great, although a little more of everything would obviously be very welcome. There were no very strong views on strengths and weaknesses, but it appears that the University Library is much more popular for books than for scores so we will have to keep thinking of new ways to promote that very large and largely unknown collection of music and make it as accessible as possible. We are after all talking about more than 500.000 printed music items at the Music Department compared to 37.000 at the Pendlebury Library.

Another area that deserves our attention is that of electronic resources for music. We have started with setting up a trial for RIPM online Archive and the Index of Printed music and any feedback received was greatly appreciated. We will be looking into setting up more trials for different types of resources, and hope to identify what is most important for our users.

We will keep working on the music pilot and on bringing music collections and services closer together and are always open to suggestions.

AP

Deryck Cooke and his 10th Symphony – recording a success

While the materials in the Deryck Cooke Archive are of historical and scholarly interest in their own right, it is of course immensely pleasing when they prove also to be of practical use to a project in the commercial, non-academic world.

An instance of such usefulness arose soon after the materials arrived at the Library – when Colin Matthews and myself (as members of the Archive’s Editorial Board) were contacted by Testament Records in connection with their plans for a CD release of recordings relating to Cooke’s work on the draft of Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony.

Testament’s intention was to produce a 3-CD set presenting the two earliest stages in Cooke’s creation of a performable edition: the famous 1960 lecture-demonstration that was broadcast on the Third Programme as part of the BBC’s Mahler centenary celebrations; and the 1964 premiere (at the Proms) of the first full-length version of his score.

Cooke's radio script on Mahler, December 1960; CUL: Deryck Cooke Archive (yet unclassmarked)

To hear that these previously unpublished recordings were being prepared for commercial release was exciting news. The 1960 programme is a classic of its kind – with Cooke introducing the largely unknown music by means of examples played at the piano, and then explaining his work on the draft score with extracts performed by a live orchestra. (A page of his actual script can be seen to the right).

What is more, the two orchestral performances together provide a fascinating insight into how musicians began to make sense of a large-scale work which in essence was half a century old, but for which no performing tradition existed.

With Colin Matthews charged with the task of producing the booklet note for this recording, work here at the University Library focused on the provision of images. Cooke’s partner Hazel Hyde (also an Editorial Board member) had sent off a portrait that could be used for the front cover; after negotiating various legal obstacles the Archive was able to release a photograph of conductor Berthold
Goldschmidt that was one of several snaps known to have been taken on the day of the Proms premiere, 13 August 1964. In addition, with the help of John F. Berky, President of the newly reconstituted Bruckner Society of America, and veteran Mahlerian Jerry Bruck of New York, we were able to source a legally usable image of the Society’s Mahler Medal of Honor – which had been presented to Cooke by Dika Newlin on the same occasion.

Cooke: 'Mahler - a reconstruction of the tenth symphony', in Radiotimes, 15 December 1960, p. 20

Another task was to scrutinise several introductory and explanatory articles that Cooke had written at the time of the broadcasts – in order to make sure that the terms in which the various items would now be described did not depart too far from those originally used. For example, Cooke was adamant that he was not producing a completion of the unfinished work, but rather providing a performing version of the draft: for the CDs’ labelling or packaging to give the impression of a ‘Cooke completion’ or ‘Cooke realisation’ would obviously be inauthentic as well as misleading. (Incidentally, Cooke tended to preserve his own articles not as typescripts or carbons, but as isolated pages torn out of the printed publication: a scan of a torn-out copy of the 1960 Radio Times article can be seen to the left.)

Concerning the recordings themselves, it was revealed that Testament had obtained various tapes of the broadcasts from a number of collectors as well as the BBC – and, upon examination, a mystery emerged: in one of the tapes from 1960 the introductions to the concluding orchestral run-through of movements and sections were delivered by Cooke himself, speaking in a concert-hall acoustic; in another they were spoken by an announcer in a studio!

The mystery was not insoluble, however. Since the original broadcast also survives in off-air recordings made by enthusiasts at the time, it is evident that the ‘Cooke-only’ tape is the earlier: one imagines that the ‘studio announcer’ version must have been produced by the BBC at a later stage – presumably to create something that could be re-broadcast as a free-standing musical item separate from Cooke’s opening 40-minute lecture. The fact that no reference to any such re-broadcast has been found may seem strange, but with a little thought it too can be explained: following the original December 1960 programme, Alma Mahler withdrew the permission she had previously given to the BBC, and forbade all further broadcasts of the Tenth. As a result, one surmises, the re-edited tape was never used: by the time Mrs Mahler rescinded her ban in 1963, things had moved on – with Cooke having prepared a new edition that played continuously, without the gaps that he had modestly left in the 1960 score.

All in all, these issues (and others!) made this a fairly demanding project that extended over several weeks – with every member of the Editorial Board putting in time and effort, and Stewart Brown, head of Testament Records, showing a distinctly un-commercial commitment to getting everything right from every perspective. When the discs were finally released, early in 2011, the finished product looked truly splendid! (for an image of the cover of the CD see http://www.testament.co.uk/media/mediaimages/1400/SBT1457.pdf). And it was good to see the applausive reviews that appeared in such publications as The Gramophone and The Guardian.

'Historic' category, Gramophone Music Recording Awards for Mahler 10th Symphone, 2011

The most gratifying development, however, only occurred months later: in September it was announced that the release had been short-listed for the Historic category of the 2011 Gramophone Classical Music Awards. And eventually – after two months of waiting! – came the news that the discs had actually won, and that Colin Matthews would be present at the ceremony to collect the award on behalf of Stewart Brown (this has been captured, and is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx-kdzQ4bbs).

I don’t think it is out of place for me to say how encouraging it is to find that the Archive’s first substantial engagement with the outside world resulted in the awarding of a coveted prize. I think a hearty ‘Well done!’ is in order for all concerned.

MD