The following post is by retired music cataloger Sharon McKinley. I’ve enjoyed perusing the Library’s World War I sheet music over the past few years as we’ve commemorated the centennial of The Great War. We are now coming to the end of the fighting. Although the Treaty of Paris wasn’t signed until June 28,1919, an […]
The following is a guest post by retired cataloger Sharon McKinley. The great city of New Orleans turns 300 this year, and they’re celebrating in a big way. To help commemorate this exciting milestone, we proudly present a few of our musical gems published in one of my favorite cities. New Orleans is best known […]
Over the past several months, I’ve been sifting through the thousands of pieces that are part of the silent film music accompaniment anthologies in the Music Division’s collection. These volumes, with titles such as the Capitol Photoplay Series, The Synchronizer Suite, or Sam Fox Photoplay Edition: A Looseleaf Collection of High Class Dramatic and Descriptive […]
“Yes, yes, let’s talk about the weather.” – Chorus, Act I, No. 9, The Pirates of Penzance, or, the Slave of Duty It has been an unusually rainy summer here in the Mid-Atlantic (and spring, for that matter)! Let’s get through this deluge with a variety of music about rain from the Music Division’s collections. […]
It’s International Jazz Day! When our friends from the Prints & Photographs Division let us know that they’d be featuring favorite jazz-related items today on their blog, Picture This, I couldn’t let the day go by without a related post. Of course, the Music Division is home to outstanding jazz collections that document the life […]
The following is a guest post from retired Music Cataloger Sharon McKinley. The Library of Congress recently made the James Buchanan and Harriet Lane Johnston Papers available online. It’s a fascinating treasure-trove of documents, including a wonderful series of letters between Buchanan and his niece and ward Harriet Lane (later Johnston), who served as the […]
The following is a guest post by retired cataloger Sharon McKinley Looking for an appropriate New Year’s greeting, I found this song featuring a distinguished-looking gentleman with great facial hair on the cover. The title seems pretty tame, but the subtitle, Dedicated to my customers… is pure click-bait- -19th century style. Pleasant and easy to sing, it’s […]
On Tuesday, October 24, the Library of Congress will welcome Dr. Randall E. Goldberg, Director and Associate Professor of Musicology at the Dana School of Music of Youngstown State University, to present on “The Kishineff Massacre and Domestic Musical Practice in America.” As part of the American Musicological Society/Library of Congress Lecture Series, Dr. Goldberg’s […]
The following is a guest post by retired cataloger Sharon McKinley The Library of Congress is home to millions of pieces of sheet music, in large part copyright deposits. Self-selecting as copyright deposits are, much of this music is rather pedestrian in quality, and what catches the researcher’s attention is some other aspect of the […]
As they say, “time flies when you’re having fun,” and we certainly have fun here in the Music Division. It’s hard to believe that we’ve reached the end of September; school is back in session, temperatures are (or should be) cooling, and thoughts are turning to fall traditions from apple picking, to chunky sweaters, and […]