The annual World Beard and Mustache Championship is several months away. In the Muse, while personally lacking in competition-level hirsuteness, could not wait that long to share this specimen with its readership. The Music Division’s Civil War Sheet Music Collection contains a number of pieces composed or arranged by C. L. Peticolas, including the “Appomatox …
We live in an era of internet memes that instantly respond to current events. The music world has had its share of them, and MTV recently published a list of 2011′s Five Best Music Memes. The music video pioneers join the legions who have dismissed one of the year’s most infamous musical newsmakers, Rebecca Black, but …
This week the Library of Congress welcomes another endeavor into the blogosphere as our colleagues in the Poetry and Literature Center launch their blog, From the Catbird Seat. We hope to collaborate with them on future posts, but in the meantime, In the Muse would like to direct our readers to some of what we’ve written …
2012 is almost upon us! The Music Division certainly had an exciting year with many accomplishments from digital projects such as the launch of the Music Treasures Consortium last February, to two successfully curated exhibits (Coast to Coast: The Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939 and I Love Lucy: An American Legend), to the continued production of …
Today marks the official beginning of Winter (though you wouldn’t know it in DC – it’s 60 degrees outside!). What could be a more fitting Sheet Music of the Week selection than the lovely color cover for Jean Schwartz’s and Grant Clarke’s “Winter Nights” ? Jean Schwartz (1888-1956) was one of the most prolific composers …
The following is a guest post from Head of Acquisitions & Processing Denise Gallo. Don’t get me wrong – I’m definitely a 21st-century woman. That I’m blogging is proof of that. Yet I frequently find myself in the 19th century. As a musicologist, I rub elbows with Rossini, Verdi, Schumann, and Brahms, but I find …
The following is a guest post by Hope O’Keeffe, Office of General Counsel. This week marks the inauguration of the Copyright Office’s first blog, on the forthcoming digitization of copyright records. The digitization of copyright records for music will be an enormous boon to people trying to clear music rights. But it also has huge …
This week’s featured sheet music honors one of the great voices of American literature. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, best known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born on this day in 1835, two weeks after Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to the Sun. Celebrate the author’s birthday with the “Mark Twain mazurka” and the …
Last year In the Muse celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with Geo. W. Morgan’s “National Thanksgiving hymn“, from the Historic Sheet Music, 1800-1922 collection in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. This year the same collection gives us our featured holiday sheet music. As I noted last year, “The turkey gobbler’s ball” is not actually about Thanksgiving but is …
Some of our readership may be looking forward to a certain movie opening up in American theaters this weekend. In the Muse can not officially endorse the series (and in fact has not seen any of the movies or read any of the books), but hopes that interested readers will not be disappointed in the …