Minstrels, metaphors ... and Minstrelsie

Latter-day Minstrelsie

(Shades of Celtic Twilight ...)

A postscript to last year's postings!

Much has been said about images of minstrels and bards in national song collections from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. 'Whittaker' discovered recently that the Whittaker Library also has a quantity of later Minstrelsie song-books, too.

An Edinburgh publisher, T. C. and E. C. Jack, published scores of them at the end of the 19th century and just into the 20th.  (The London firm of Caxton also had a hand in this.)

So - if you're curious, you can see our collection of latter-day minstrelsie books here - Scots, Cambrian, English and British - take your pick!  (Though it has to be said they're art-music collections of popular national songs, and haven't much connection with the earlier ones.)

Worthy of note are the prefatory essays in some (but not all) of the volumes, written by contemporary authorities on such questions as singing the repertoire; the history; and how this generation handled modal melodies.  This paratextual material could prove more interesting than the song-settings themselves. 

Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard

For a forthcoming conference paper, "Whittaker" has undertaken to talk about Scottish and Welsh  songbooks.  Welsh?  Now, there's a new venture!  

A Tiki-Toki timeline keeps track of new Welsh discoveries: 21 titles so far. Next problem - getting hold of titlepages/ prefaces!

Tiki-Toki is a brilliant way of organising historical facts.  Ask Music and Academic Services Librarian Karen McAulay to tell you more about it.

Whittaker's Magic Carpet

Welsh songbook update



‘Whittaker’ is checking out 19th Century Welsh song collections to see how they compare with Scottish and Irish. A magic carpet to Wales would be nice, but this isn’t really feasible. In the absence of the carpet, we’re trying crowdsourcing. If a songbook has paratext, and particularly if it’s early, it must be seen!  Whittaker is very grateful indeed to the Welsh librarians who have offered to help here.  Looking forward to what 2012 will bring!

Three cheers for COPAC, Mendeley and Twitter!
I'm also using PBWorks as a wiki: Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard.


In terms of what Whittaker has seen/ not seen:-


SEEN

• Jones, Edward - Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, 1794
• Jones, Edward - The Bardic Museum, 1802
• Thomson, George (and Haydn) - A Select Collection of Original Welsh Airs, 1809-17
• Williams, Maria Jane - Ancient National Airs of Gwent and Morganwg, 1844
• Richards, Brinley, The Songs of Wales, 1879 (4th ed)
• Parry, Joseph et al, Cambrian Minstrelsie, 6 vols, 1893-5

UNSEEN

• Jones, Edward - Hen Ganiadau Cymru = Cambro-British Melodies, 1820
• Parry, John - Cambrian Harmony, 1809
• Parry, John - A Selection of Welsh Melodies, 1809 & new ed., 1821/2
• Parry, John - A Collection of Welsh Airs, 1810
• Parry, John - A Third Volume of Welsh Melodies, 1829
• Parry, John - The Welsh Harper, 1839, 1848
• Thomas, John, Merthyr Tydfil - Y Caniedydd Cymreig =The Cambrian Minstrel, 1845
• Alaw, Owain (John Owen) - Twelve Popular Welsh National Songs, 1859
• Thomas, John, Thomas Oliphant and; John Jones, Welsh Melodies, 1860
• Owen, John (Owain Alaw, Pencerdd) - Gems of Welsh Melody, 2 vols, 1860
• Hulse, Henry, The beaties of Cambrian Melodies, 1863

Whittaker's Winter Holidays



Christmas 2011

 The Royal Conservatoire of Music is closed between Christmas and the New Year.  The Whittaker Library will reopen on Wednesday 4th January 2012.

Library Team Christmas Dinner 2011

Library Ladies Christmas Headgear

Because 'Whittaker' is on holiday, his blogposts may be rather sporadic.  But he can't leave you totally bereft of helpful updates! 

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Corff y Gainc: Welsh Folk Melodies

Here is a useful digital archive of folk melodies from old Welsh sources.  It comes from Chris Grooms, who also maintains www.docgrooms.com.

Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard - sourcing digital copies of Welsh collections

Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard

PROJECT INTRODUCTION: We are examining late 18th and 19th century Welsh songbooks to see what their prefaces etc tell us about their cultural background.  In literary terms, all the introductory matter is called the paratext.  So, we're looking for minstrels, bards, harps and other symbols of a Celtic Welsh past; also for metaphors which give away clues about what mattered to the compilers of these songbooks, and the audiences they were intended for.

PROJECT LEADER: Dr Karen McAulay, Music & Academic Services Librarian at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

PROJECT MEMBERS: currently, we're a handful of librarians, but interested literary scholars and librarians would be very welcome to join us.

• All good crowdsourcing projects have a wiki - here's our Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard wiki. 

There are also two Tiki-toki timelines:-

• Introducing project: King Edward's folly - crowdsourcing the Celtic bard 
• Chronology of Welsh songbooks .

Help is needed locating digital copies please.  Some are on Internet Archive (see the wiki resource bar), but others remain to be found.