Have you ever had an “earworm”, a song stuck in your head? From the Historical Sheet Music Collections, here are some funny takes on show business’ response to the omnipresent songs of the day. The Merry Widow was a popular operetta composed by Franz Lehár, and in 1907 the public’s craze for the music, especially…
Jean-Claude Touche: unknown hero
Many have been the excited blogs I’ve written over the years, highlighting a find in the Ward Collection. It is often difficult to restrain myself from writing about something once a day, given the riches hiding in every box. But sometimes, the discoveries are rather sad, and I thought twice about highlighting this particular score….
“You seem as dull as… a Yale man”
In April of 1892, Harvard sophomore George Doane Wells along with fellow members of the D.K.E. or “Dickey” Theatricals, wrote and produced an original comedic opera, Antony and Cleopatra, or, The Sinner, the Siren, and the Snake. The Dickey Theatricals were part of the Institute of 1770, a social club for Harvard sophomores which eventually…
Home grown
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Touted as Europe’s first dope magazine, Home Grown’s first publication was in 1977 and presented an “enlightened and informative, as well as entertaining, attitude to dope and related subjects – views and approaches not expressed by the…
Historical sheet music collections: The many faces of “Hawaiian Butterfly”
SHEET MUSIC 159 (O) Sheet music was often marketed by association with popular vaudeville, Broadway or movie stars. This tune from 1917, Hawaiian Butterfly, was published by Leopold Feist with at least eleven different vaudeville stars and teams pictured in the cover inset. The graphics and text are the same, as is the publisher’s plate…
Historical sheet music collections: The Heroism of King George
In our recent investigations of Houghton’s historical sheet music collections, I ran across an unusual score of the anthem God Save the King. The score included an unfamiliar verse by Mr. Sheridan at the bottom of the first leaf, and I couldn’t find the imprint recorded anywhere (though frequently libraries don’t catalog their sheet music…
This is a political newspaper/This is not a political newspaper
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. During the blossoming of the counterculture movement of the late 1960s, San Francisco saw the formation of an anarchist collective: the Diggers. Taking inspiration (and their name) from the 17th century English Protestant radical group which…
Historical sheet music collections: Dancing Downton-style!
Some terrific dance music for a grey Wednesday – some genteel, early-Downton-Abbey era numbers, and some a bit more scandalous:…
New on OASIS in January
Two new finding aids have been added to the OASIS database this month: Processed by: Irina Klyagin Robert O’Hearn set designs (MS Thr 1236) Processed by: Jennifer Lyons Twentieth century American and British theater programs (MS Thr 1194)…
Magnificent vellucent!
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. This collection has been especially rich with volumes by Charles Baudelaire who though most famous as a French poet was also an art critic, essay writer, and translator of Edgar Allen Poe. La Fleurs du Mal,…