Music blog tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-99929701007005453 2013-05-22T09:31:38+01:00 Welcome to the British Library’s Music blog. The music collections of the British Library are amongst the finest in the world, encompassing materials in all formats (e.g. manuscript, printed editions, recordings, literature) from all periods. This blog is written by our team of music curators, led by Richard Chesser. TypePad british-library-musichttp://feedburner.google.com Wagner goes online at 200 tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef0192aa2bb8d3970d 2013-05-22T09:31:38+01:00 2013-05-22T16:22:12+01:00 22 May 2013 is the 200th birthday of probably the most influential composer ever to have lived, Wilhelm Richard Wagner. The British Library is celebrating this anniversary with a study day on Wagner the Writer as well as a complete performance of the Ring cycle – without music! We have... Nicolas Bell Wagner weekend at the British Library, 8-9 June tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef019102342db2970c 2013-05-16T12:30:56+01:00 2013-05-17T10:29:23+01:00 Saturday 8 June Study Day: Wagner the Writer British Library Conference Centre, 10.30-17.00 Wagner's writings range widely over subjects as various as race, climate, vegetarianism, aesthetics and modern science. Above all he was formulating ideas that would take dramatic shape in his operas. Distinguished musicologists, literary historians, and translators speak... Rupert Ridgewell The Banks of Green Willow tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017eeb1ed415970d 2013-05-15T17:09:22+01:00 2013-05-16T10:27:17+01:00 As cultural institutions make more of their material available online, great opportunities lie waiting to be discovered. Not only is it possible to browse collections from one institution, it's also possible to reunite objects, recordings and manuscripts which have been stored in separate institutions - sometimes for over a century.... Tom Miles Steve Martland tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef01901bed6c03970b 2013-05-08T12:16:15+01:00 2013-05-10T17:11:10+01:00 We were very saddened to hear of the death of Steve Martland, one of the most innovative British composers of his generation. Born in Liverpool in 1959, he studied composition with Louis Andriessen in The Hague. In many of his works one can hear the influence of American minimalism refracted... Nicolas Bell May Day at BL World & Traditional Music tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017eeaba5c7c970d 2013-05-01T15:50:19+01:00 2013-05-10T17:14:42+01:00 As 1 May is May Day, we thought we would give you a glimpse of the Traditional Music in England collection available on BL Sounds. You can find many recordings of May Day celebrations such as this one recorded in the streets of Padstow on May Day in 1976. Folklorist... Tom Miles Investigating Zulu instruments - the strange tale of the isicelekeshe tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017eea5bfff5970d 2013-04-19T14:18:22+01:00 2013-04-19T15:33:20+01:00 Identifying a musical instrument just from a recording can be quite problematic. A recently heard recording, soon to be available online, was one such example. The recording was made by South African composer, Kevin Volans, at a Zulu wedding on the 26th June, 1977, where a male vocalist was accompanied... Tom Miles Interviews with Ethnomusicologists now online! tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017d42b660c0970c 2013-04-12T16:21:30+01:00 2013-04-12T16:41:30+01:00 You can now hear the recorded interviews of leading ethnomusicologists on the British Library “Sounds” website. These interviews were made by Dr Carolyn Landau from 2010 to 2012. The interviews offer an insight into the researchers’ musical upbringing and education and what drew them to the field of ethnomusicology in... Tom Miles Cataloguing and Processing the Ethnographic Wax Cylinder Collection – Part 2 tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017c382ae3a6970b 2013-04-02T10:25:50+01:00 2013-04-02T10:25:27+01:00 In my last post, I offered a selection of three short recordings that form part of the ethnographic wax cylinder collections housed and available for listening at the British Library. Coming towards the end of processing this 3500 strong collection, this follow-up post offers some further musical highlights that caught... Adrian Poole Reuniting music manuscript collections tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017d4231df93970c 2013-03-22T14:39:22+00:00 2013-03-22T14:38:53+00:00 The past weeks have been busy in the British Library’s music department, with negotiations taking place over the acquisition of several twentieth-century composers' music manuscripts. We’ll be providing news of these in future posts. It’s our policy to acquire, preserve and make available to researchers the original manuscripts and papers... Sandra Tuppen Update on the Malcolm Sargent Collection tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c464853ef017ee8d43291970d 2013-03-01T15:02:14+00:00 2013-03-01T15:02:14+00:00 The cataloguing of the Malcolm Sargent Archive has now generated over 4,000 individual catalogue records of Sargent’s general correspondence. Since my last blog post, coverage has been extended to the year 1958, by which time Sargent had become one of the most celebrated public figures in Britain. Correspondence from 1948-58... Edward Small