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Letitia Hill loved her Selection of Irish Melodies ...

... but Letitia didn't have the complete set.  Nonetheless, she had them bound, sometime prior to 1830.  There are three parts of the Selection of Irish Melodies, a few single songs composed by Stevenson to texts by Moore, Walter Scott and T. Lyster; and a couple of songs by John Clarke.  All but one of the items was published in both Dublin and London, which suggests Letitia's book has an Irish connection.

Her volume of songs has just been added to our Special Collections.  (Is there a special rare books term for a volume of separately published items, bound by the collector, or do we just call it a "collector's volume"? ) 

http://prism.talis.com/rcs/items?query=letitia+hill+stevenson

The non-Irish item at the end of the volume?  Dale's Collection of Reels and Dances, no.17 (pp.65-68), published by Joseph Dale in London, and sold at 19 Cornhill opposite the Royal Exchange, and other venues.

Contents are summarised in the catalogue link above; however,a full listing of contents can be supplied on request.

Mary Paul's music book - Irish music-making in 1802

A music-lover called Mary Paul

We know very little about Mary Paul, but we do have her bound collection of music.  Engraved simply, Mary Paul, 1802, it's possible that this was Mary's maiden name, for there is a pencilled 'Mary A. Hogg' on the endpaper inside.

All we know - Mary's name and a date

Mary wrote an index for her book - it's at the front.  There's an assortment of vocal pieces, popular pieces from contemporary operas, and piano music; Mary numbered every page - all 447 of them.  The music seems mostly to have been published in contemporary Dublin, by the likes of Hime, Rhames, William Power, McDonnell's, Edmund Lee, John Lee, and Gough.

One of Mary's collection

There are Scottish pieces, too.  Like, 'My Ain Kind Dearie: a favorite Scotch Air, with Variations composed by D. Corri. (Domenico Corri was a famous singer and Scottish music arranger at the time.)  Or 'Lewie Gordon: a celebrated new rondo for the forte piano or harpsichord' - published in Dublin by Anne Lee.  No composer for that one.

And an intriguing item is a piano sonata, probably by Frantisek Kotzwara, called 'The Battle of Prague', complete with 'The Bugle call for the cavalry', and 'Flying bullets'.  (It was a popular piece with Jane Austen, apparently - see Penelope Cave's recent recital at St Andrews, of Very Pretty Tunes: Repertoire from the Austen Family Collection.)

Late 18th century hymns and psalms

You never know what'll turn up next ...

A donation of two old bound volumes is proving very interesting.  The first is a collection of late 18th century hymns and psalm tune publications - and an abbreviated Messiah for pianoforte or organ and voices!  Published in Dublin, who knows where they've spent the past 212 years or so before ending up in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland?
Before 'Whittaker' gets over-excited, he's off to have a quick coffee, then it'll be time to catalogue the second volume.

IAML 2011

Belfast

'Whittaker' had a busy weekend. 

Last Saturday, after chairing a session on nineteenth century music in Belfast, I reached my Trinity College Dublin room at 11.35 pm, in readiness for the IAML (International Association of Music Librarians) Dublin Conference starting on Sunday. An unearthly time to arrive, but there were still people there in the Accomodation Office!  Impressive, eh?

Delegates were surprised to find a handwritten note on their residence door one day requesting them NOT to slam their doors.  A shushing librarian?  On the contrary - our self-closing doors were disturbing a foreign summer-school student!

But what do music librarians do at conferences?

Civic Reception, Dublin

Sunday: 'Whittaker' observed a IAML Council Meeting and attended a civic reception in Dublin City Hall, also finding time to visit the vaults below for an exhibition of Dublin's history; and walking back to Trinity College via the historic statues of Daniel O'Connell and Thomas Moore.

Lecture theatre

Monday: Heard papers on Geminiani and Handel in Dublin (Christopher Hogwood) and Handel's 'Messiah' in Dublin (Katherine Hogg).  Then papers on the Contemporary Music Centre of Ireland's Digitisation Project (Jonathan Grimes) and the National Archive of Irish Composers (by pianist Una Hunt).  After lunch, I gave the first paper of a session on Celtic music:- 'Minstrels and Metaphors' (Karen McAulay - see my pages relating to Minstrels and Metaphors, and a Bibliography); this was followed by Pirate editions of Scottish music (Almut Boehme, of the National Library of Scotland); and Joyce, Wilde and Yeats [as used in popular music] (Eleni Mitsiaki).  After tea, we heard reports from the national Branches.  Dinner with assorted UK and European colleagues.

IAML strategic forward planning

Tuesday: Dived into the University Library to post my bibliography on this blog, then attended a session by the Bibliographic Commission about how we can promote our service, and further discussion about using social media.  Next, we had a session on RILM (see the Bibliolore blog feed to the right of this posting); this was followed by a paper on musicology in Ireland (Maria McHale).  After lunch with colleagues, there was a plenary session on the future of IAML. (Now we've reached our 60th anniversary, it's time for reflection and strategic planning for the future.)  Very interesting talk by Harry White on the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland (Whittaker Library will be ordering this!); followed by an evening concert of cello and piano music by Ferenc Szucs and Una Hunt.  Dinner with UK and Australian colleagues, and our President, Roger Flury (New Zealand).

Una and Ferenc



Wednesday.  Rise and shine at 4 a.m., and regretfully head for the Airport.  I'm very grateful to the Music Libraries Trust for their kind bursary enabling me to attend this conference.  I shall follow delegates' tweets to find out what happens during the rest of the week.