{"id":2186,"date":"2015-08-04T10:57:29","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T14:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2016-01-27T13:12:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T18:12:08","slug":"songs-in-the-english-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/2015\/08\/04\/songs-in-the-english-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs in the English language"},"content":{"rendered":"

Songs in the English language<\/a>, a collection of printed music from England, Ireland and Scotland, is now cataloged and available for research.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0gift of emeritus professor John Milton Ward, these English-language songs were published in London, Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh between 1675 and 1870. There are ballads, popular songs, romances, pastorals, patriotic songs, hunting songs, bawdy songs, sea songs, political songs, and music from theaters and pleasure gardens.\u00a0 Most of the pieces carry the name of their composer and many also identify the singer who first made the song famous as well as where it was sung.<\/p>\n

\"Arne,<\/a>

Arne, T. A. Rule Britannia. Ms. Coll. 143 (85)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Generally, each sheet transmits a single song scored for voice with keyboard accompaniment; frequently, in a convention lost to time, sheets also include transpositions of the melody for performance with transverse flute (also known as German flute).\u00a0 The use of guitar accompaniment is nearly as common. Most are engraved, some are printed in movable type.<\/p>\n

Publications such as these were the primary means for distributing (usually solo) vocal music with simple accompaniment for domestic use.<\/p>\n

\"Purcell,<\/a>

Purcell, H. A Two Part Song. Ms. Coll. 143 (1454)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Sandford,<\/a>

Sandford, J. An Invitation to a Robin Red Breast. Ms. Coll. 143 (1561)<\/p><\/div>\n

There are songs for use at clubs, such as the amateur musicians of the Anacreontic Society<\/a>, the Beefsteak<\/a> Club<\/a> and the Je Ne S\u00e7ai Quoi Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Anonymous.<\/a>

Anonymous. Could a Man be secure, A favourite duet sung by Messrs. Dignum & Sedgwick at the Je Ne Scai Quoi Club. Ms. Coll. 143 (463)<\/p><\/div>\n

And there are songs for the theatre, mainly Drury Lane and Covent Garden but also Lincoln\u2019s Inn and the King\u2019s Theatre.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>

[Ariosit, A.] New Words to a Favourite Air. Ms. Coll. 143 (1824)<\/p><\/div>The locales were urban, domestic, theatrical and provincial, and included the London pleasure gardens (represented by over a hundred songs), the Hanover Square Rooms and the concert scenes of Bath, Bristol and Liverpool.<\/p>\n

Among the composers are \u00a0Johann Christian Bach, Henry Purcell (with 38 items), Georg Friedrich Handel (36) and John Stafford Smith, composer of the melody for the Stars and Stripes<\/em>. The texts are by a just as large a range of writers: Thomas D\u2019Urfey, Ben Jonson, Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare (with at least 35 items) and many more.<\/p>\n

\"Craven,<\/a>

Craven, Elizabeth. O Mistress Mine, a favorite madrigal, the words from Shakespeare. Ms. Coll. 143 (472)<\/p><\/div>\n

Spanning the reigns of four kings and one queen, the collection offers a rare, ready-made opportunity for detailed scholarly research into a number of topics: song (art and otherwise), literature, publishing, paper types, printing technology, marketing, collecting, circulation, domestic music-making, individual singers (male as well as female), venues, morals, opera, theater, genre, and notation.\u00a0 They bear witness to two centuries of song composition as well as musical consumer culture in the English-speaking world.<\/p>\n

The opportunities for inquiry and discovery are great.\u00a0 Some of the pieces here survive in many known exemplars while others are unique to this collection. Moreover, while many of these songsheets are rare items because they were ephemeral (and probably published in very short print-runs), few institutions host such large collections of the genre.<\/p>\n

To request items from the collection of Songs in the English language, 1675-1870, begin here<\/a>. The staff of the Isham Memorial Library<\/a> will be pleased to assist researchers who wish to work with these materials, or who would like to know more about about the collection.<\/p>\n

Submitted by former Isham Memorial Library Assistant Ellen Exner and by Christina Linklater, Keeper of the Isham Memorial Library.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Songs in the English language, a collection of printed music from England, Ireland and Scotland, is now cataloged and available for research. The\u00a0gift of emeritus professor John Milton Ward, these English-language songs were published in London, Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh between 1675 and 1870. There are ballads, popular songs, romances, pastorals, patriotic songs, hunting songs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7183,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15748],"tags":[15728,19738,15719,14789,40316],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-isham-memorial-library","tag-chamber-music","tag-john-m-ward","tag-popular-music","tag-scores","tag-songs","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6lSEF-zg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2216,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}