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Universal Circulating Music Library was a type of music publishers' lending library established in the United Kingdom in the 1850s and 1860s. [1] By the 1920s, no significant such circulating libraries by music publishers had survived, probably due to reduced demand. Most of the housed music collections in such publisher-run libraries was lost, with only some still found in music publishers' archives.
Messrs. Scheurmann & Co. were probably the first music publisher in the United Kingdom to start a Universal Circulating Music Library in 1855. [2] An announcement at the time stated: "The catalogue contains more than 42,042 separately numbered works, embracing almost every English and Foreign publication, under various headings and subdivisions. [...] [Most music reference libraries] labor under the serious disadvantage of being confined to either one class of musical works, or—as in the case of the British Museum—of being available only to those who can go from home to study." [3] It had an annual subscription fee and a printed catalog could be purchased separately. [3]
The Universal Circulating Music Library provided by Novello, Ewer & Co. dates back to 1868. [1] The preface of the first catalogue states: "This Library, which was established, and has been most successfully carried on since 1859, by Messrs. Ewer and Co., has been purchased by Messr. Novello and Co., and will be continued by them under the style of Novello, Ewer and Co." [4] The terms of subscription and the regulations of use are given on the next page.
Ivor Novello was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
Vincent Novello, was an English musician and music publisher born in London. He was an organist, chorister, conductor and composer, but he is best known for bringing to England many works now considered standards, and with his son he created a major music publishing house.
Sir John Stainer was an English composer and organist whose music, though seldom performed today, was very popular during his lifetime. His work as choir trainer and organist set standards for Anglican church music that are still influential. He was also active as an academic, becoming Heather Professor of Music at Oxford.
Henry Colburn was a British publisher.
Mary Victoria Cowden Clarke was an English author, and compiler of a concordance to Shakespeare.
Edward Francis Rimbault was a British organist, musicologist, book collector and author.)
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and the oldest such journal still being published in the country.
Alfred Robert Gaul was an English composer, conductor, teacher and organist.
Hugh Ottaway was a prominent British writer and lecturer on classical music.
Joseph Alfred Novello was an English music publisher. He was the eldest son of Vincent Novello, and the creator of Novello and Company Ltd as a revolutionary force in music publishing.
"My Robin is to the greenwood gone" or "Bonny Sweet Robin" is an English popular tune from the Renaissance.
Thomas Hookham (c.1739–1819) was a bookseller and publisher in London in the 18th-19th centuries. He issued works by Charlotte de Bournon, John Hassell, Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret, Ann Radcliffe, Clara Reeve, and others. As part of his business he ran a circulating library, established in 1764 and by the 1800s one of "the two largest in London." The library continued on Bond Street until it was acquired by Mudie's ca.1871. In addition, about 1794 he opened the Literary Assembly subscription reading rooms stocked with periodicals and reference books.
John Noble was a bookseller and publisher in London in the 18th century. He issued works by Daniel Defoe, George Smith Green, Eliza Haywood, Jane Marshall, John Robinson, and others. As part of his enterprise he ran a circulating library near Leicester Square that stocked some 5,535 titles by the 1760s. By the late 1770s his business had been taken over by B. Desbrow. John's brother Francis Noble (d.1792) also worked in the book trade.
Henry Robert Gadsby was an English composer, music educator and church organist.
Osbert Parsley was an English Renaissance composer and chorister. Few details of his life are known, but he evidently married in 1558, and lived for a period in the parish of St Saviour's Church, Norwich. A boy chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Parsley worked there throughout his musical career. He was first mentioned as a lay clerk, was appointed a "singing man" in c. 1534, and was probably the cathedral's unofficial organist for half a century. His career spanned the reigns of Henry VIII and all three of his children. After the Reformation of 1534, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the official policy of each monarch.
The Madrigal Society is a British association of amateur musicians. As with other madrigal societies in England and elsewhere, its whole purpose is to sing madrigals. It may be the oldest club of its kind in existence in England. It was founded by the copyist John Immyns. Sir John Hawkins was an early member of the club and, in his General History of the Science and Practice of Music of 1776, gives the date of its foundation as 1741; the earliest documentary evidence dates from 1744.
Emma Wright Mundella was an English composer and arranger, recital pianist, church organist, choral conductor, teacher of music and hymnal editor. In her short life she published anthems, choruses and cantatas as well as songs, hymns, pieces for solo piano and for piano and other string instruments. As Director of Music Teaching at Wimbledon High School for Girls her particular interest was the encouragement of musical appreciation by young people, in pursuit of which she wrote many compositions for children and schools. Though her music is now seldom heard, her lasting achievement was her well-regarded editorship of The Day School Hymnbook, the expanded edition of which was published shortly after her early death and which brought her posthumously into national prominence.
Oliver Arthur King was a British composer, pianist, organist and conductor.
Percy William Pilcher, ARCO, was an organist, composer, and a railway photographer, who was one of the first in Britain to capture images of moving trains. 250 of his glass plate negatives from the F. Burtt collection are held by the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York, the earliest of which has been dated to around 1881–2. Pilcher sold much of his work to F. Moore's Railway Photographs, who published them as uncredited prints and postcards. The corresponding negatives are also now in the possession of the NRM.
Joseph Gordon Saunders MusD was a composer of songs, church music and organ music. He was also a teacher of composition, piano, harmony and counterpoint at the Trinity College of Music. He was known to have conducted ensemble classes.