> Speaking of old books, I found one in my mother's house. [...] It is
> not dated. Called "Scotland Calling in 50 Scottish Songs", it has both
> staff notation and sol-fa. For someone who has only a vague knowledge
> of sol-fa, this is rather like finding the rosetta stone.
> The book was published by Mozart Allen, 84 Carlton Place in Glasgow.
> Lots of standard stuff, like Scots Wha Hae and Auld Lang Syne, but a
> couple of tunes I don't already know (which you all probably know like
> the back of your fiddle, so I won't embarass myself by listing the ToC).
> I *shall* embarass myself by admitting I don't know the arranger, who
> is Mr. C. MacKay Collier. Does this clue help date it?
I looked this up in the National Library of Scotland. Haven't seen the
actual books (if they're undated that won't help much), only the catalogue
entries. They have two copies; one from Murdoch Henderson's collection,
dated 1964, and another helpfully dated "1900-1995" with a 1996 accession
code - I presume that means Mozart Allan caught up on a century's backlog
of legal deposits in one hit.
The cover design, as I remember it, certainly looks older than 1964, but
music publishers are conservative about such things - the style could
predate WW1. I haven't heard of Collier either.
As Mozart Allan were/are based in Glasgow, perhaps the Mitchell Library
has more copies that might pin this down better. Maybe some Glaswegian
list member could look?
The NLS has two other items titled "Scotland Calling". One is a BBC
forthcoming-programmes list from 1932, exactly the period David Kilpatrick
was suggesting. The other is about the Empire Exhibition held in Glasgow
in 1938.
The address is another clue, as a last resort; Glasgow directories will
say when they moved. The earliest address I have for them (on the two
sets of "110 Scottish Songs", published in the 19th century) is 60 South
Portland Street; the 1996 one was 65 Berkeley Street, a few doors from
where James S Kerr used to be. They have also changed their spelling at
some point; they were "Allan" on all the book covers I've got, "Allen"
in the 1996 Royal Mail postal address book I'm using.
Are there any other items advertised in this book? That might help date
it.
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