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Posted by: Pat Padua
The Music Division wishes you a happy New Year’s Eve. If you find your midnight kiss watched over by the winking satellite pictured in “Under the Midnight Moon,” from the Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800-1922 in the Performing Arts Encylcopedia – please, call a cab. Celebrate New Year’s Day with the Bernsteins with this holiday greeting …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The first time I read Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem “The Bells,” I thought it was unusually upbeat for a work by the master of the macabre. But upon further reading, those clamorous consonants, that constant clanging, the “time, time, time,” and “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle” are entirely in line with the likes of “The Telltale …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post by Contract Archivist Janet McKinney. At a time of year when the airwaves are saturated with holiday music, I continually hear the strains of one man’s iconic songs stand out from the rest – those of Irving Berlin (1888-1989). It occurred to me that many may not associate these …
Posted in: Composers, Guest bloggers, Holidays, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
In the Muse wishes you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving. Between mashed potatoes and halftime, the musically inclined among our readership may wish to celebrate the day in song with Geo. W. Morgan’s’ “National Thanksgiving Hymn,” dedicated to then President Rutherford B. Hayes. After dinner, take an invigorating constitutional to work off that second …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
On this Veterans Day, take time to remember those who served our country with songs from Patriotic Melodies in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia, including “The Army Goes Rolling Along,” “The Marines’ Hymn” (Happy 235th birthday to the United States Marine Corps!), and ”The U.S. Air Force Song” (which you may know as “Off we go into the wild …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
In the Muse recently put out a call to Music Division staff in search of ghost stories, and while nobody would tell me outright that they felt an unexplained cold spot on the Coolidge Auditorium stage, or that sounds of the Stradivarius would emerge mysteriously from an empty hall, the age and history of this …
Posted in: Holidays
Posted by: Pat Padua
It’s not exactly Schoolhouse Rock, but between the barbecue and the fireworks, celebrate the long Independence Day weekend with John E. Wilson’s vocal arrangement of the Declaration of Independence from the Civil War Sheet Music collection. You can also find sheet music and recordings of “God Bless America,” “America the Beautiful,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Celebrate Flag Day with songs from the Civil War Sheet Music Collection, and of course our National Anthem, The Star-spangled Banner, in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia.
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
In the United States, Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday in May. The day was first set aside in 1868 “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every …
Posted in: Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections