Following the cyber-attack on the British Library last year, staff have been working behind the scenes to restore access to the Library’s digitised manuscripts. The Library has now made an initial batch of 1,000 digitised manuscripts available online. Among them are about 60 music manuscripts. 

Major English music manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are included, along with two Bach treasures from the eighteenth century. A highlight is the keyboard manuscript My Ladye Nevells Booke (MS Mus. 1591). 

‘My Ladye Nevells Booke’. MS Mus. 1591, f. 1r.

This manuscript dates from 1591 and contains music by the English composer William Byrd. The manuscript was probably a gift from Byrd to Elizabeth Nevell of Hambledon in Buckinghamshire.  Byrd evidently composed some of the pieces especially for her, and her family’s coat of arms is included at the front of the book. Elizabeth seems to have had an abiding interest in music. Under her later married name of Lady Periam she was the dedicatee of music by Thomas Morley.   

The music in My Ladye Nevells Booke was copied out in a beautiful calligraphic style by the ‘singing man’ and scribe John Baldwin. This elaborate style of writing was very suitable for a manuscript being presented as a gift.  Baldwin was also the scribe of another newly available manuscript, the Baldwin Commonplace Book (R.M.24.d.2).  This was his ‘file copy’ of almost 200 sacred and secular works, by various composers. It is written out in a much plainer style. 

Another highlight among these digitised music manuscripts is the so-called Henry VIII Manuscript (Add MS 31922). This was compiled in about 1518 and contains music composed by Henry VIII. The other music in the manuscript is also likely to be repertoire that was performed at Henry’s court. There is no evidence that the King owned the manuscript himself, though. It may have belonged to a noble individual associated with the court. 

‘Pastime with good company’ by Henry VIII. Add MS 31922, ff. 14v-15r.

 

Also included from the sixteenth century is the Mulliner Book (Add MS 30513), a collection of over 100 pieces for keyboard compiled by Thomas Mulliner. Seventeenth-century composers featured in this first batch of digitised content include William Lawes and John Eccles. There are also several miscellanies containing music by many different composers. 

Finally, a small number of music manuscripts from the eighteenth century are included.  The highlights are two manuscripts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, written in his own hand. They are the second book of Bach’s ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ (Add MS 35021) and his cantata ‘Wo soll ich fliehen hin?' (Zweig MS 1). 

J.S. Bach, autograph manuscript of the Prelude in C major, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II. Add MS 35021, f. 1.

 

As further digitised music manuscripts become available online, we will post updates about them here. You can browse a list of all currently available on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts pages. 

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) and its upcoming Annual Conference at Senate House (University of London) and the British Library, we have put together a blog written by Leanne Langley, former RMA Vice-president, about the RMA archive held at the British Library.

55 manuscript volumes make up the British Library’s (BL) Royal Musical Association Papers, 1874-1971, catalogued as Add. MSS 71010-71064.  Gathered with the benefit of some serendipity, these were presented to the Library by the RMA in 1983, 1989 and 1992. They complement a small number of RMA-related papers from the 1930s and 40s already held by the BL (Add. MSS 56236 and 59670). 

Large as it is, this archive doesn’t cover the Association’s entire 150-year history: a substantial tranche of more recent Council minutes (March 1950 onwards) and other matter remains in the RMA’s possession and is set for assessment and accession in due course. But the current Papers do cover a very large part of the RMA’s distinguished history, offering an unrivalled look into the nation’s oldest learned society for music.  Founded in London in 1874 as the Musical Association, ‘for the investigation and discussion of subjects connected with the art and science of music’, the organization flourished independently of British higher education until the late 1940s. Its ‘Royal’ prefix, presented by George VI in 1944, conveyed high symbolic status at a crucial moment, while all along, genuine prestige accumulated through the Association’s fostering of solid research.   

From 170 members in 1874-75 to a current membership of more than 1400, the Association has maintained its venerable position and unique character among music scholarly organizations. It publishes two journals and a monograph series, sponsors study days and two annual conferences, supports new work by young and mature investigators including musicologists, music analysts, ethnomusicologists, composers and practitioners (in and beyond academia), and promotes intellectual exchanges with colleagues in all corners of the globe. Strong historical links with the British Museum/British Library, moreover, make the Papers’ location especially apt.

As a former RMA Council member, Journal reviews editor and vice-president, I was looking forward to our sesquicentenary in 2024 when, in 2015, the Council asked me to consider writing a history of the Association. Since the RMA Papers had never before been examined as a whole, it made sense to embark on a study of this rich resource for that purpose. But could I sustain a systematic search through 55 hefty volumes?  Meetings, membership and finance records, scrawly handwriting and repetitive correspondence doesn’t sound like the stuff of riveting history; key information would have to be excavated and the context amplified before any narrative could amount to more than a dutiful summary.

Balloting list for the election of Council and Officers at the RMA’s 1901 Annual General Meeting. British Library Add MS 71033, f. 43

Lo and behold, discovering more about the real (historical) people on every folio and seeing why they ran things as they did – who their friends and colleagues were, what they were up against, what they were aiming to achieve both as a group and in their own researches: all these intersecting lines prompted more questions.  I soon looked forward to the many long days it would take, over several months, to absorb details in the Papers and to find logical connections explaining the RMA’s trajectory, and its people as distinctive scholars. I persisted with the challenge.         

Without exaggeration I can say that the exercise has been eye-opening, not only for what the Papers contain, but for the outward paths they point, the actions and reactions they document. The RMA was small, but never intellectually isolated from scholars in other fields or from music in public life; its membership was once diverse in ways that have recently begun to disappear; and its dedication to music research was always intended to benefit wider society and improve public discourse. These findings open new ways to appreciate the RMA’s achievement. Illuminating how ‘musicology’ only gradually, belatedly, became professionalized in the UK and how its local character differed from that in Europe and the USA, the Papers also affirm that British musicology influenced, and in turn was marked by, those separate and eclectic traditions. 

The Papers themselves are divided into two main parts: Minutes and Official Papers (Add. MSS 71010-71035, vols. 1-26); and Correspondence (Add. MSS 71036-71064, vols. 27-55).

RMA Minute book for 1874-75. British Library Add MS 71010

The first part is subdivided by content type: eight Minute books, 1874-1950, and a ‘Standing Instruction book’ of 1901-33; seven volumes of Membership records and attendance registers, c. 1874-1970; six volumes of financial papers, c. 1927-84; and three mixed volumes of printed announcements, the Articles and Memorandum of Association, sessional arrangements and project reports, 1898-1971. The Papers’ second part, even more extensive, consists of thousands of letters arranged alphabetically by writer, Anon. to Zwingli. Although strictly ranging across 1898-1971, this material is concentrated in the 1950s and 60s, owing largely to the care of the RMA Secretary at that time, Nigel Fortune, whose skilled management contributed markedly to a lift in the standing of British musicology.

Among many intriguing items, the following examples give an idea of topical scope:

• early news clippings reacting to the Association’s founding
• menus and programme cards for ‘Annual Dinners’ (the earliest from 1898)
• drafts of Annual Reports with financial and member information
• attendance registers for specific paper meetings
• committee reports and letters (from 1938) recommending fruitful new areas of research that might be taken up by younger scholars
• copies of the Home Office letter to E.H. Fellowes, 24 August 1944, conveying the King’s grant of permission to use ‘Royal’ in the Association’s name
• design and launch plans, at the V&A, for the RMA’s Musica Britannica (MB) edition in 1951, coinciding with the Festival of Britain (prefaced by complaints from Encyclopaedia Britannica over supposed illegal use of the name ‘Britannica’)
• a telegram from the King’s private secretary, congratulating the RMA on the publication of their first three volumes in the MB series
• extensive correspondence with printers, book agents and reprint companies, shedding light on the business of scholarly journal publishing (the Association acted as its own publisher for 111 years and benefited from the international reprint bonanza of the 1960s)
• documentation of Joseph Kerman’s plans for a facsimile edition of Beethoven’s ‘Kafka’ Sketchbook in association with the RMA and the British Museum in 1970.

 

Concert programme for the RMA’s 1898 Annual Dinner. British Library Add MS 71033, f.11

Many more subtle details, for example involving decision-making and future research directions, are also present, whether buried in minutes, post-paper discussions, letters or articles.  Some are associated with celebrated scholars, critics and librarians, from John Stainer, William Barclay Squire and E.H. Fellowes to Sylvia Townsend Warner, Edward J. Dent and Frank Howes; from Francis Galpin, C.B. Oldman and Anthony Lewis to Thurston Dart, A. Hyatt King and Denis Arnold. But many other good ideas came from members less well known, some of them far-flung.   

As a spur to one’s historical imagination, raising issues not previously appreciated, there is nothing so effective as full immersion ‘in the archive’. It can provide a spark to further work and new understanding. For helping me grasp a richer view of the Royal Musical Association’s long history, I am glad I said ‘yes’ to these Papers.  

Leanne Langley

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the British Library’s Beyond the Bassline exhibition. Admiring the autograph manuscript of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast led me to wonder: might not more of Coleridge-Taylor’s wonderful music be heard today if some of the obstacles to performance were removed?

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's autograph score of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, British Library Add MS 62519

Be it through libraries, publishers, or online services like IMSLP, we are used to being able to access high-quality ‘performance-ready’ sheet music editions. It comes as something of a surprise, therefore, to learn that a significant amount of Coleridge-Taylor’s output is unavailable via these means. To understand why, a brief history of performance sets may be useful.

Performance sets in the early 20th century

In 1898, when Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast was composed, any large-scale work such as this was expensive to publish. In the days before computers and photocopiers, any sheet music part requiring multiple copies for performance would need to be hand-engraved onto copper plates, which could then be used for printing as many copies as were required. Vocal scores, containing all vocal parts and a piano reduction of the orchestral score, were printed in their thousands using this method, ensuring each choir member could have their own copy. String parts, too, with multiple desks to a part, were also often (but not always) engraved and printed in this way. For material requiring only one copy for performance, however – usually all wind, brass and percussion parts, as well as the conductor’s full score – it was uneconomical to engrave and print in this manner, and these were normally copied by hand by a professional copyist from the publishing house. Depending on the popularity of the work, only one or two copies of each of these parts would ever be produced.[1] Any choral society wishing to perform the work would purchase the printed vocal scores from which to rehearse, and hire the manuscript orchestral material from the publisher when ready to perform.

A typical performance set: professionally copied wind parts for the Prelude to Coleridge-Taylor’s opera Thelma. From RCM MS 4909. Reproduced with permission of the Royal College of Music, London.

Composers’ autograph scores used in performances

For those of us accustomed to revering a manuscript as an almost sacred object, it is amazing to learn that the composer’s autograph was often included in these performance sets for the conductor to use. The RCM’s manuscript of Coleridge-Taylor’s Kubla Khan, op. 61, for example, includes a label from the publishers reminding borrowers not to mark, or even cut out sections(!) from this unique object. This was rarely enough to entirely discourage conductors from annotating the scores, and many such scores contain obvious markings from prior performances.

Page from Coleridge-Taylor’s autograph manuscript for Kubla Khan, marked by a conductor. From RCM MS 4869. Reproduced with permission of the Royal College of Music, London.

This system of producing performance sets worked well enough, and met the needs of publishers and performers. Long term, however, this approach could lead to lost parts (which could be re-copied) or, much worse, lost scores (which could not!). Famously, Coleridge-Taylor’s only opera, Thelma, op. 72, was believed to be lost until it was rediscovered in 2003.

Eventually, as technology changed to make the printing of scores and parts easier and cheaper (along with the emergence of a more conservation-minded approach to composers’ autograph manuscripts), these performance sets left the ownership of publishers and made their way into libraries.[2] While this represented an important step for the long-term preservation of these works, their reference-only status in their new homes effectively put an end to their availability for performance – a symbolic change in status from ‘music for performance’ to ‘music for study’. In many cases, only the scores survived, the parts being deemed a ‘duplication’ of the scores’ contents, unworthy of study from a historical standpoint (not being in the composer’s hand), and therefore an unnecessary use of precious space.

Performing Coleridge-Taylor’s music today

Today, therefore, it is remarkably difficult for an orchestra or choral society to lay their hands on performance material for some of Coleridge-Taylor’s most popular works – and this despite much of his music being out of copyright and, in theory, freely available for all to enjoy. Works such as Choral Ballads, op. 54, or Ulysses, op. 49, may perhaps never be performed again as originally conceived, the scores and parts having completely vanished.[3] Yet for most of his works, the survival of an autograph or copyist score offers hope that they can be revived. The absence of orchestral parts is problematic, but not insurmountable.

The upsurge in interest in Coleridge-Taylor's music in recent years has given rise to some heroic efforts at revival and some inspiring stories of success. Following the discovery of Thelma, this opera was performed for the first time in 2012; a published score is also available to purchase. More recently, Legend, op. 14, for violin and orchestra, was given a new lease of life in 2022 by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The following year, working from autograph and copyist scores of The Atonement, op. 53, Bryan Ijames staged a production of this monumental work for Easter 2023.

Advertisement for the revival of Coleridge-Taylor’s The Atonement, March 2023

It would be remiss to fail to mention the English Heritage Music Series, whose formidable efforts in the production of performance material from library manuscripts have rescued many works by Coleridge-Taylor and his contemporaries from obscurity. All their performance editions are freely published, royalty-free, for download on their website; and their all-Coleridge-Taylor programme of rescued works will be live-streamed on 3 August 2024.

Each of these projects represents a phenomenal effort on the part of their respective leaders. The editing of performance material from a manuscript orchestral score – especially when the handwriting is as difficult to decipher as Coleridge-Taylor’s! – is a large and daunting task. Yet each is a valuable contribution to the continuing effort to promote the music of this fascinating composer and serve as an encouragement to those inspired to do the same. Many more of Coleridge-Taylor’s works are yet to be revived, and those with the drive to do so will be richly rewarded by bringing to life these treasures from the past.

Jonathan Frank, Assistant Librarian, Royal College of Music

[1] Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast is a rare exception, being so popular that it was deemed worthwhile to engrave the wind and brass parts.

[2] See Jeremy Dibble, ‘The RCM Novello Library’, The Musical Times 124 (1983), 99-101.

[3] In many cases, excerpts from these works survive in arrangements for smaller ensembles, such as voice and piano.