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Category: Manuscripts & Archives

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How do you ‘Fail better’?

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The Science Gallery’s new show – Fail better – is described as ‘A collection of inspirational failures’. The phrase ‘Fail better’ comes from Samuel Beckett’s characteristically difficult, characteristically glum late text Worstward Ho! (1983):

 

            ‘All of old.  Nothing else ever.  Ever tried.  Ever failed.  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better’.

 

Three manuscript drafts of Worstward Ho!, belonging to the Library, have been loaned to the exhibition, which is curated by Jane ní Dhulchaointigh and Michael John Gorman, and which runs until 27 April next.

 

The Science Gallery show asks the question ‘Does failure drive innovation?’ It celebrates ‘inspirational and serendipitous’ failure in the development of work by designers, inventors and scientists.  This is a utopian, even heroic view of failure, failure as a research tool, as a necessary part of an evolutionary process that, once learned from, will ultimately lead to success.

 

Other exhibits include Flann O’Brien’s hat and Christopher Reeve’s wheelchair. They have been selected by different individuals – including Anne Enright and Ranulph Fiennes – and each piece has a little essay, in the catalogue, to account for its inclusion in the show.

 

It takes a brave optimist – a scientist! – to put a positive spin on ‘Fail better’!

 

Darragh O’Donoghue

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No Coward Soul is Mine – Ina Boyle’s Legacy

Ina Boyle (2)

Ina Boyle is the subject of the next lecture in the ‘In Tune’ series, to be given by Dr Ita Beausang at the Trinity Long Room Hub at 6.00pm in Thursday 13 February. Dr Beausang, author of a forthcoming biography of Ina Boyle, takes the title of her lecture from a poem by Emily Brontë which was set by Boyle in a work for contralto and string orchestra. This piece was composed in 1953, and received its first (and only?) performance at the Wigmore Hall in London on 28 April 1960. The soloist was Janet Baker, then at the beginning of her acclaimed singing career. Boyle notes in her register of compositions that the vocal part was not returned to her after the performance – perhaps Dame Janet still has it!

The title of the lecture is apposite as Ina Boyle seems never to have been discouraged by lack of recognition. In her register she stoically records the fate of each of her compositions: works were repeatedly sent to conductors, performers and publishers for consideration, and usually returned unused. Her Violin Concerto (1933) is a case in point:

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“Sept 9th 1933, sent it to Jelly d’Aranyi, whose secretary returned it unread, saying she had not time to look at it.

Sept 28th 1933. Sent it to Ornea Pernel, who refused it.

Oct 17th [1933] Sent it to International Festival selection committee (O.U.P. London). Unsuccessful.

Jan 1st 1934. Sent it to Mr. Boult at the B.B.C. It was tried at a rehearsal […] but the B.B.C. would not broadcast it.”

The BBC made amends in August 2010 when, at a BBC Invitation Concert at the Ulster Hall, Belfast, the concerto was finally given its first performance by Catherine Leonard and the Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Montgomery.

The ‘In Tune’ exhibition provides several opportunities for Dublin audiences to hear some of Ina Boyle’s works. Her six-part motet ‘The Spacious Firmament’ (1954) was performed by the RIAM Chorale at the first concert in December, and her String Quartet in E minor will be included in the concert by the Callino Quartet in the Examination Hall on 13 March. And looking further ahead, the RTE National Symphony Orchestra plans to include Ina Boyle’s first symphony, ‘Glencree’ (1927), in its 2014-15 concert season.

In Tune, sponsored by KBC Bank, runs until 1 April 2014.The exhibition is also available online.  Full details of the accompanying lecture and concert series are available here.

Roy Stanley

Music Librarian

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Mahaffy and Music

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John Pentland Mahaffy is renowned as one of the more colourful characters in the history of Trinity College Dublin. A classicist who ended his career as Provost (1914-1919), his interest in music is less well known but had considerable beneficial impact on the development of the Library’s music collections.

Gall V 9 40

When Sir Robert Prescott Stewart died in 1894 it was Mahaffy who proposed to the Board that Ebenezer Prout should succeed him as Professor of Music, submitting several of Prout’s books on music theory as testimonials. Prout held the post until his death in December 1909, and in his will stipulated that Trinity College should be given the option of purchasing his extensive music library “at a reasonable price”. Prout had valued the collection at £1000, but Mahaffy on behalf of the College agreed to buy it for half that amount. He raised over £300 from friends for the purpose, and the Board supplied the remainder. The Bursar paid a further £60 out of College funds for a new bookcase to house the collection: this was placed down the centre of the Long Room where it remained until the 1960s, when the collection was transferred to the Berkeley Library basement and the bookcase was removed to the basement of Townley Hall.

Prout M 45

This was Mahaffy’s most important contribution to the Library’s music holdings, but it was not the first. In June 1903 he had paid 30 shillings for the manuscript of ‘Caractacus’ by the Earl of Mornington, written in 1764, the year of Mornington’s appointment as the first Professor of Music. The manuscript is currently on display in the ‘In Tune’ exhibition.

Mahaffy may also have had a hand in the deposit of James Goodman’s collection of folk tunes in 1897. When the Irish folk music scholar Donal O’Sullivan attempted to consult the Goodman collection in the 1940s he discovered that the terms of the deposit stipulated that the volumes could only be seen in the presence of Professor Mahaffy. As Mahaffy had died in 1919, it was found necessary to make contact with Goodman’s grandson, who formally presented the manuscripts to the College in September 1944.

In Tune, sponsored by KBC Bank, runs until April 2014.The exhibition is also available online.Full details of the accompanying lecture series are available here.

Roy Stanley

Music Librarian

You can listen to an interview with Roy Stanley about the In Tune exhibition on the Arena show on RTE Radio 1 14 January 2014. The interview begins at 23.30.

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Conservation of Greek Papyri

Cons papyrus project workThe Manuscripts and Archives Research Library in Trinity College Dublin holds over 1,200 important Greek papyri fragments, the majority of which came from extensive cemetery excavations by Sir W. Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), a British Archaeologist and Egyptologist in Gurob Egypt in 1890. These scraps of papyrus, used as padding within mummy casings, provide a record of the social history of the ‘ordinary ‘individual in Ptolemaic Egypt. They include miscellaneous fragments of private letters, legal and financial records, bills and decrees, and agricultural transactions, ranging from 262 – 200 BC. In September 2013, the Preservation and Conservation Department commenced work on a small selection of Greek papyri housed between glass and perspex pressure-mounts.

 Cons Pap 082 verso

Cons Pap 044 recto

The project involves the documentation and conservation of 300 papyri fragments and the provision of an improved housing system for the collection. The treatment involves the removal of damaging tapes used to hold fragments together and to hinge the papyri to either the glass or perspex. Texts obscured by creased and folded fibres are being revealed, and fractured areas are being consolidated, prior to remounting. The specialized skills required for the conservation of papyri have been introduced to the department by Clodagh Neligan, who is assisted by Rebecca de Bút. The goal of the project is to establish procedures that will be followed for the conservation of the entire collection of papyri fragments, with this small sample serving to tease out treatment methodologies and housing issues. Once remounted the collection will be ready for digitisation, which will increase access to this relatively unknown yet remarkable resource. This project is kindly funded by the University of Dublin US Trust fund.

Clodagh Neligan and Rebecca de Bút

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Virgin and Child

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The Manuscripts and Archives Research Library houses a small collection of manuscripts and book satchels originating from Ethiopia. This manuscript, TCD MS 1497, is a book of devotions to the Virgin Mary and is currently on view as part of the From Darkness to Light exhibition accompanying the Book of Kells in the Old Library.

 

Ethiopia’s adoption of Christianity in the fourth century linked it culturally with the Byzantine world and the Eastern Mediterranean, and it absorbed artistic influences from Byzantine, Coptic and African traditions. However, once established, its religious texts and artistic precepts remained fixed, making dating of manuscripts very difficult. The cult of the Virgin Mary became especially important in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ethiopia sparking an appetite for devotional works such as this one. Illustrations in the manuscripts are vibrant and exuberant and often make use of blocks of juxtaposing colours.

 

The Virgin and Child iconography displayed on folio 39 is close to its counterpart in the Book of Kells: the Virgin has a ‘jewel’ on her shoulder and a cross on her headcloth. She is accompanied by two angels, possibly archangels.

 

Estelle Gittins