Whittaker and Northumbrian Minstrelsy

In which the 'real' Whittaker goes Back to his Roots

We've blogged about William Gillies Whittaker before - how he was the first joint Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow, and Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. But while we're proudly claiming him as our own, let's not forget he was originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, and something of an authority on Northumbrian minstrelsy.

A 1965 edition of a book on the subject (the much earlier first edition of Northumbrian Minstrelsy was published in 1882) - cites Whittaker's opinions of it. Northumbrian Minstrelsy, ed. J. Collingwood Bruce and John Stokoe, 1882, (and 1965 foreword by A. L. Lloyd), can be read online in pdf here.

Fast forward to the present.   There's a Northumbrian Minstrelsy concert at The Sage, Gateshead, on Sunday 23 June 2013.  Details here.  It's organised by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle.  The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland notified its members in a recent newsletter.  'Whittaker' (latter-day blogger on behalf of the Whittaker Library) decided to connect the circle by attending the concert.  'He' can hardly contain his excitement, and his minstrel jacket will undoubtedly get an airing.

Minstrels are evidently very much alive and well.  (Not that readers of this blog need any reminding of that fact!)

• Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle
• Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 

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. 

Whittaker's pics

Whilst in Cardiff, 'Whittaker' visited Ty Cerdd, the Welsh music information centre, in the Wales Millenium Centre.  (Did you expect holiday snaps?  Oh, fie!)

And of course, collected one of 14 Excellence Awards on behalf of the Whittaker Library - all very exciting!  Here's a quick picture to tide us over until we have the certificate framed and displayed.
Returning to the reality of daily life in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Whittaker discovered that inanimate objects can now speak.  The plants had 'I am not thirsty' notes attached, and one of the books had decided that retirement was long overdue.  It's nowhere near 67 yet, but it really looks past its best, so we can understand its self-promotion to the 'Library in the sky'.


If you're curious what Karen was talking about, down in Cardiff,  do take a look at her powerpoint presentation on Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard.  Not content with her researches into the Scotish Minstrel (sic!), she now knows a fair bit about his Welsh cousins ...


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

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.

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.

Thomas Gray: The Bard: a Pindaric Ode. 1757

Margaret Maclean Clephane, of
Torloisk, Mull (before her marriage)

So why did 18th and 19th century poets and songwriters make so much fuss about bards and minstrels? Blame Thomas Gray. He knew that, according to tradition, King Edward I had all bards massacred. Gray wrote a poem about the last bard bemoaning what had happened, then committing suicide. It was a hugely, massively influential poem! Now read my page on Minstrels and Metaphors.