The Music Division is celebrating the completion of its Clipping File inventory (done entirely by volunteers) with a blog series. Melissa is one of the volunteers who contributed so much to this three-year effort to document over 46,000 folders in the Music Division's clipping File, you can read her other summaries in Part 1: "Musicians and Politics" and Part 2: "The Scandals".
Performers and Performances: from the politically incorrect, to just plain weird, to really cool twist.
We have journeyed through music history and encountered musicians and critics who were politically active, landed themselves in scandalous situations, and used poisonous pens to tarnish careers.
These last articles are in a class all of their own.
This first article would never be printed in 2015, at least in the language and manner that it was printed in 1941, no matter how talented this woman was.
Just Plain Weird: the program says it all:
Finally, whether or not you love it or hate it, here is a really cool twist to a famous musical (this version with a composite score):
Thanks for following me in this three-part mini-blog series. Although the Music Division's Clipping File is now inventoried, there are other inventory projects still going on strong for volunteers like myself (currently I'm inventorying vast numbers of American popular songs).
On a personal level, I found articles about my clarinet professors’ recitals before they became famous in their own right, and pieces of music that I never heard before for the clarinet family. I also discovered the true popularity of composers I studied in college through these rich primary sources.
Please come and discover the musicians, scandals, and other musical events in the Music Division’s Clipping Files at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on the third floor. You never know, you may even find a folder dedicated to you if you had a musical presence in New York City.
