Cataloging
Interesting quote from the The King's Theatre Collection book I found:
"The King's opera companies, even during the best of times, staggered from season to season, surviving on box subscriptions and marginal trading, which included running coffee rooms and selling publishing rights to librettos and "Favourite Songs". The latter, which occupy the lion's share of this catalogue, were fodder for the fashionable private and semi-private musical soirees of the gentry and connoisseurs. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the favorite song market was fuelled largely by the rapid development of the domestic piano for middle class music-making. Opera songs constituted a significant proportion of the total London book trade. A popular aria from the latest opera or a perennial such as La Buona Figliuola could sell thousands of copies. This potentially lucrative market led to frequent and bitter copyright disputes among composers, publishers, singers and opera companies" (x-xi).
Gives interesting insight as to where these things I've been cataloging came from and how they were used. I'm sure it was quite common for people (such as E.A. Foster, who was presumably the owner of the bound volume of songs I've been cataloging) to have their own "Favourite Songs" bound together in convenient volumes. I can't imagine it would have been very convenient to actually play or sing from these bound volumes, though. I wonder how that worked?
Cataloged a few more pieces in the bound volume today. Starting to get a few lithograph drawings on the title pages which makes things a bit more fun. One was a duplicate of something already cataloged in the regular catalog (in a music spec. bound volume), not in the suppl. catalog, so I'll need to ask Mark how to deal with that.
Hours today: 2.5 (4:30-7:00pm)
Hours this week: 5
Total hours completed: 67.5
"The King's opera companies, even during the best of times, staggered from season to season, surviving on box subscriptions and marginal trading, which included running coffee rooms and selling publishing rights to librettos and "Favourite Songs". The latter, which occupy the lion's share of this catalogue, were fodder for the fashionable private and semi-private musical soirees of the gentry and connoisseurs. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the favorite song market was fuelled largely by the rapid development of the domestic piano for middle class music-making. Opera songs constituted a significant proportion of the total London book trade. A popular aria from the latest opera or a perennial such as La Buona Figliuola could sell thousands of copies. This potentially lucrative market led to frequent and bitter copyright disputes among composers, publishers, singers and opera companies" (x-xi).
Gives interesting insight as to where these things I've been cataloging came from and how they were used. I'm sure it was quite common for people (such as E.A. Foster, who was presumably the owner of the bound volume of songs I've been cataloging) to have their own "Favourite Songs" bound together in convenient volumes. I can't imagine it would have been very convenient to actually play or sing from these bound volumes, though. I wonder how that worked?
Cataloged a few more pieces in the bound volume today. Starting to get a few lithograph drawings on the title pages which makes things a bit more fun. One was a duplicate of something already cataloged in the regular catalog (in a music spec. bound volume), not in the suppl. catalog, so I'll need to ask Mark how to deal with that.
Hours today: 2.5 (4:30-7:00pm)
Hours this week: 5
Total hours completed: 67.5
posted by Amy | 2:46 PM
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