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Posted by: Cait Miller
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been seven months since we announced the Music Division’s William P. Gottlieb Collection joining the Library of Congress Flickr project. Clearly time flies when you’re having fun checking out Gottlieb’s stellar photographs, and here we are today uploading the last images in the collection. This week’s final batch …
Posted in: Jazz, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The Battle of the Alamo began on this date in 1836. In the Muse remembers this fight for independence with our Sheet Music of the Week, penned by Percy Wenrich and Ben Deely. The songwriters’ grasp of the actual battle seems tenuous , as Deely’s lyrics appear to riff on “Alamo” simply because, unlike “orange,” …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Cait Miller
In recognition of President’s Day, I thought I would join NPR’s classical music blog, Deceptive Cadence, in highlighting the newly recorded choral cycle, Mr. President, commissioned in 2004 by Judith Clurman (renowned choral conductor and NPR’s Artist in Residence for the month of February). The cycle consists of 13 choral settings of quotations from various …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music
Posted by: Pat Padua
A major national magazine has just published their highly anticipated annual swimsuit edition. The art blog Modern Art Notes recently put out a call to museums for their first annual swimsuit post. In the Muse offers its own modest suggestions for beach apparel, in the fashion that was all the rage of 1914. Who knows what the amorous …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post by Music Cataloger Laura Yust, who recently researched composer Johanna Beyer in a seminar about American Modernist composers. Laura is pursuing her M.A. in Musicology at The Catholic University of America. Many people know of the composer Henry Cowell and his innovative compositions, but the name Johanna Magdalena Beyer …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Women in Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
It’s Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air! As this blog has revealed to us over the last 14 months, the Music Division holds a plethora of materials in its collections including manuscript scores, correspondence, business papers, iconography, and yes – even love letters. There’s not a romance in the history of classical composers …
Posted in: Composers, Holidays, Special Collections, Women in Music
Posted by: Pat Padua
Today we release the penultimate set of photographs from the William Gottlieb Collection to Flickr. This set includes classic portraits of jazz legends like Fats Navarro and Tadd Dameron, Ray Nance, and Buddy Rich. There are also striking images of lesser known figures, like a Kodachrome portrait of singer Dottie Reid. Her isolation in the frame – …
Posted in: Jazz, Musicians, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
In the Muse has been under the weather lately, but has been dragged out of sick bay to bring sheet music to a readership clamoring for songs to sing. This week’s humorous tale of childhood disease is brought to you by a husband and wife songwriting team that is little known today, Irene Franklin and …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post by Senior Music Specialist Ray White. Victor Herbert’s 152nd birthday is this month. If you recognize his name, you might recall that he composed operettas. Perhaps Babes in Toyland comes to mind. Its best-known number, “Toyland, Toyland, little girl and boy land…,” recorded by Doris Day, Johnny Mathis, the …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Guest bloggers, Special Collections