Autograph Albums Research Articles

Preludes to friendship: improvisatory instrumental souvenirs in 19th-century autograph albums

Abstract Among the musical souvenirs found in 19th-century autograph or friendship albums is an overlooked repertory of improvisatory pieces for solo string and wind instruments. These cadenzas, capriccios and preludes were given to collectors by some of the leading performers of the day, including violinists Charles-Auguste de Bériot, Ole Bull, Ferdinand David, Joseph Joachim and Niccolò Paganini; and flautists Louis Drouët and Jean-Louis Tulou. Most of these pieces are found nowhere else, and because they include precise indications of date and place, some can be connected to specific performances. As musical self-portraits, they capture their authors’ personalities and artistry in strikingly varied ways: from visually extravagant (and occasionally humorous) roulades, to bel canto ‘vocal’ cadenzas and more extended flights of fancy. Taken as a whole, this repertory brings us a step or two closer to what was heard in salons and concert halls than the more familiar repertory of published cadenzas, capriccios and preludes.

Remember Me: Vocal Cadenzas as Mementos in Nineteenth-Century Musical Autograph Albums

Abstract Between the 1830s and the 1880s, leading female singers such as Henriette Rossi Sontag, Laure Cinti-Damoreau, Adelina Patti, and Pauline Viardot participated in a widespread custom of inscribing original vocal cadenzas in autograph albums (also known as friendship albums, keepsake albums, alba amicorum, or Stammbücher). The appeal of album cadenzas, along with other compact inscriptions, reflects a wider Romantic fascination with remembering through small keepsakes such as miniature almanacs and annual compilations of poetry, prose, or music. Whether improvised in the presence of collectors or offered as souvenirs of earlier performances, cadenzas functioned as mementos of musical and social encounters while visually representing singers’ musical personae through performative gestures. These florid pieces also allowed female singers to exercise agency as both creative artists and curators of their public images, much like the (mostly male) composers whose musical signatures fill surrounding album leaves. As performance-practical sources, vocal cadenzas preserve rare and revealing traces of singers’ artistry; many, in fact, can be linked to specific concerts or performances of operas by Bellini, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Verdi, and others. In the case of Cinti-Damoreau, such music illuminates the connection between improvisation, performance, and pedagogy. The gradual disappearance of album cadenzas during the last quarter of the nineteenth century is attributable not only to a waning interest in musical improvisation generally, but also to a shift in creative authority away from singers and toward composers, particularly in the operatic realm.

Poetic Resistance: Girls’ Autograph Albums during World War II in Norway

Poetic Resistance: Girls’ Autograph Albums during World War II in Norway

Poetic Resistance: Girls’ Autograph Albums during World War II in Norway

Poetic Resistance: Girls’ Autograph Albums during World War II in Norway

Study of Handwritten Albums in the National Science in the 19th — Early 21st Century

The article considers bibliography of study of Russian albums of the 19th — early 21th century. Development of Russian historiography of this topic was uneven. The author consistently describes three main stages in the study of handwritten album: response of contemporaries and public discussions of this phenomenon; the beginning of publication of album texts; introduction of albums to science. The article presents the main directions of academic research. The author considers domestic publications about Russian albums, starting from the first quarter of the 19th century through the beginning of the 21st century. The analysis of the literature on albums was carried out from the point of view of the author’s area of interests (study of the history of autograph albums, their typology and functions), the nature and scope of the objects studied, the main tasks of these works and their methodological principles. The main problem in historiography is development of typology of handwritten albums. The choice of typology as the main subject of analysis is explained by the fact that in general this phenomenon of Russian culture of the late 18th — first quarter of the 20th century was not studied systematically. The author notes that in order to create the full picture of Russian album culture, it is necessary, first of all, to build the typological system. The result of the author’s research is the complete review of publications on Russian handwritten albums published from 1820 to 2016. The author highlights the main typological principles of albums that are typical for different approaches, research schools and directions of study. The article notes that many issues have not been considered until the present moment. The approach to album as a source of history of individual writing and sociocultural behaviour is beyond the study, while the comprehensive analysis of Russian album, writing and signature in it is one of the promising directions of research of the culture of everyday life of the 18th — 20th centuries. The general conclusion of the article focuses on the absence of universal typology in historiography, which the author suggests to present in the following works.

Scots and the Netherlands as Seen through Alba Amicorum, 1540s–1720s

ABSTRACT The study of alba amicorum is still a relatively obscure yet growing pursuit in the Anglophone world. By browsing through these autograph albums, it is possible to unlock the names of Scots so long sunk into oblivion or simply reveal additional details and facets to the personality of those whose names have come down the centuries. Additionally, vriendenboeken weave networks of relations between Scots and Europeans expanding our understanding of these mobile and endeavouring individuals. These volumes are important as they help the historian get a clearer picture and add to the better knowledge of the peregrinatio scotica in particular vis-à-vis the Netherlands. The genre of alba amicorum fully deserves a greater consideration from the Scottish, and indeed British, historian. They offer a rounder picture of the contributors’ identities and give a voice to Scottish women which is independent from that of their husbands.

Handwritten Rebellion: Autograph Albums of Irish Republican Prisoners in Frognach

Handwritten Rebellion:Autograph Albums of Irish Republican Prisoners in Frongoch Marguerite Helmers Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. "This book was lifted for a joke out of Cook House. Return to Paul Cusack." Internment Camp Autograph Book Belonging to Paul Cusack. Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, MS K18. [End Page 20] On Easter Monday, 1916, three members of the Irish separatist militia from Granard, County Longford, motored to Dublin in a Model T Ford.1 An armed rebellion for Irish freedom had begun at noon that day and, intending to join the fighting, the men traveled sixty-five miles before being turned back by the British army at the city limits.2 In the car were Paul Dawson Cusack, John Cawley, and Cusack's cousin Larry Kiernan.3 Cusack was recognized as a "prominent separatist" and was particularly well-connected to the rebel mainstream.4 His older brother, Dr. Brian Cusack (later a TD for North Galway) was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and, with John Cawley, established the Irish Volunteer Army in Granard in 1913.5 Brian called Paul "a prime mover" in the Granard Irish Volunteers.6 Undoubtedly known to British authorities, Cusack and Cawley were arrested in the general sweep of suspects after the Easter Rising and imprisoned in Richmond Barracks, Dublin.7 After a month or more in Dublin, Cusack was deported to England and from there, to Frongoch detention camp in Bala, North Wales. He was assigned [End Page 21] to work in the kitchen. There he appears to have found an autograph book, which he and began to pass around to his fellow prisoners for signatures. A page in the center of the album is marked, "This book was lifted for a joke out of Cook House. Return to Paul Cusack"8 (figure 1). Cusack's book is a typical album, a small and inexpensive bound volume filled with cheap wood-pulp paper in pastel colors of orange, yellow, grey, and blue. The book opens in a horizontal orientation, what we would today call "landscape format." Irish republican autograph albums such as Paul Cusack's provide material evidence of a situation occasioned by World War I and the ongoing political conflict in Ireland. They emerged from the conditions of imprisonment under the Defence of the Realm Act of 1914: boredom, camaraderie, and reified Irish identity. Yet the label "autograph album" is misleading. Although it defines the format of the bound book, it suggests ephemera and "the assumption that their contents were essentially meaningless."9 These small books are more than a list of mates; Irish republican autograph albums are complex collections of original writing and artwork, remembered refrains from political speeches and ballads, and sentiments about the war and the Irish rebellion. Furthermore, they provide a link between Irish prison memoirs of the nineteenth century (such as works by John Mitchel, Thomas Clarke, and Oscar Wilde) and those of the late twentieth century in Northern Ireland (such as the writing of Bobby Sands). Autograph albums kept by Irish republican prisoners can be found in the collections of the National Library Ireland, the National Museum at Collins Barracks, and at Kilmainham Gaol. It is likely that even more remain in the private hands of families. These objects should thus be viewed as significant repositories of cultural communication; autograph albums reveal the consciousness of a people during a momentous time of change. Paul Cusack's album, one of several hundred housed in archives in Ireland and the United States, clearly illustrates the continued use of an autograph album. Now in the special collections at the University of Kansas, Cusack's book was part of a large collection of Irish writing and ephemera belonging to P. S. O'Hegarty, a writer, civil servant, and supreme commander of the IRB. [End Page 22] O'Hegarty knew Dr. Brian Cusack, Paul's brother, and also Terence MacSwiney, who was imprisoned with Paul in Frongoch. Cusack himself could not be called a major figure in the story of Irish independence; his significance lies in the fact that we can trace the autograph album to him and that his autograph album is typical...

Palingenius Zodiacus vitae-je a magyarországi Album Amicorumokban

The reception history of the Zodiacus vitae is an independent research topic long ago outside Hungary, researchers have been analyzing the various levels and forms of reception for decades. However, the peculiarities of the Palingenius-reception in Hungary have not been systematically studied. Although full edition of the entire Zodiacus vitae printed in Hungary is not known, several copies of different printed editions arrived to Hungary. The popularity of this epic philosophical poem is indicated by several entries in the autograph albums of peregrine students. These Hungarianrelated entries mostly accurately quote the details of the work in gnomes. The conscious, customized combination and re-functioning of quotations follows the international practice of the era.

The News in Album Studies (Two Case Reviews)

The author reviews two publications in album studies. The stimulus to write this review was primarily the personal impression induced by the scope of scientific and cultural information combined with professional one, and equally attractive way of its presentation. The two books in question address different readership and apply different methods, yet they deal with the same cultural phenomenon and in a certain way continue and supplement each other. The first subject of the review is the beautiful, amply illustrated publication of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, entitled The Garden of Remembrances (2016) and consisting of two separate parts. Reda Griškaitė, the author of the first part called „Essays in Album Studies“, gradually reveals the stages of shaping the album canon, the reasons and ways of its change, the meaning that individual inscriptions or drawings had to the albums’ owners and their contemporaries. She discusses the close connections existing between the contents of these “books of friends” and the forms of the cultural life, the structure of the social relations, and the historical situation of the past epochs. The essay presents concise yet very informative cultural study, incorporating special knowledge from various disciplines, including literature studies, history, art, music, botany etc. Each fragment of this essay deals with separate feature of the album contents and aesthetics. To introduce the history and development of the album genre, the author of the essay analyses fifty albums stored at the Wroblewski Library (the first inscription in them dating as early as 1609, while the last coming from 1973). The author also discusses at least thirty unique manuscripts, preserved at other libraries both in Lithuania and abroad, or in private keeping. The second part of the book presents the catalogue of the albums stored at the Wroblewski Library, compiled by the book researcher Rima Cicėnienė following the international practice in this field. This catalogue is the first register of album amicorum accumulated in a single institution of the Lithuanian cultural heritage.Unlike the previously reviewed publication, focusing mostly on the old, classic albums, the second book discussed in this review deals with the late kind of albums that thrived in the 20th century. This is the monograph The Tradition of Autograph Albums in the Culture of Latvian Schoolchildren (2013) by the Latvian folklorist Baiba Krogzeme-Mosgorda. Using the contextual method of analysis, this author focuses on the social environment of the albums, which she highlights by discussing the influences that institutions (like school), family, community, various subcultures and other social factors (including age groups, gender, and social status) had on this kind of written culture, its contents and expression. Among the schoolchildren, the albums played not only an important socializing role. The analysis of the textual repertoire and decorations used in them enables recognizing the schoolchildren’s albums of remembrances as an educational activity that also enhances creativity

(De)Constructing the Praxis of Memory-Keeping: Late Nineteenth-Century Autograph Albums as Sites of Rhetorical Invention

Deconstructing the praxis involved in the collecting of discourse in late nineteenth-century American autograph albums, this essay links the socially based practices involved in middle-class young women's (re)inscription of messages of friendship within such spaces to Jacques Derrida's theory of différance. While the commonplace language contained within such objects often has a conservative orientation, its circulation within communities through customary practices of exchange opened up opportunities for rhetorical invention. The opportunity to write in these locations also represented access to new discursive arenas, participation which likely played a part in women's gradually increasing access to the public sphere.

Psychological Crystal Palace?: Late Victorian Confession Albums

Psychological Crystal Palace? Late Victorian Confession Albums Samantha Matthews (bio) The “Secret Treasury” of Autograph When I began considering nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British autograph books, I was surprised to find that a genre with such piquant relevance to current critical preoccupations had received scant scholarly attention. What commentary there is was largely produced by American anthropologists in the 1970s, as part of the broader movement to map American regional character by cultural products. Sylvia C. Henricks, W. K. McNeil, and Robert P. Stevenson are typical in their descriptions of autograph verse as orally transmitted texts of American identity and rites of passage. 1 My aim in this essay is to read the confession album, a specialized form of Victorian printed, published autograph album, with the careful historiographic attention we are accustomed to give to literary texts. As far as I can discover, the confession album has attracted almost no sustained scholarly interest. 2 In seeking to restore the history of these specialized autograph albums to the evolving history of the book, I will explore how publishers played upon the common reader’s aspiration also to be a common writer—even an autobiographer. 3 At the root of the Victorian fascination with collecting autographs in albums and books is the potential of autograph to signify subjectivity; and the age’s spirit of innovation and enterprise sought ingenious variations on the basic genre, of which the confession album is probably the most elaborate. The confession-writers not only inscribed their autographs, but answered a series of questions about personal traits, tastes, and opinions. I will document the fortunes of this relatively sophisticated subgenre, from [End Page 125] its origins in archetypal question and answer exchanges (catechism, confession to a priest, rote learning), and the influence of fortune-telling games, religious controversy, and the significance of autograph in nineteenth-century culture, through its zenith in the 1870s and 1880s, to its brief revival during World War I. There is an innate sympathy between confessional literature (typified by the development of confessional autobiography by St. Augustine, Rousseau, De Quincey, and others) and the function of autograph. Literary confession is self-writing, self-definition, and justification, addressed to God perhaps, but read by the author’s contemporaries. On the first page of his Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that he will present his book on the Day of Judgment as a testament of selfhood: “I have displayed myself as I was, as vile and despicable when my behavior was such, as good, generous, and noble when it was so. I have bared my secret soul as Thou thyself hast seen it, Eternal Being!” 4 While we may feel entitled to question the author’s self-representation, the rhetoric of self-writing is clear; in comparison, autograph (in the general sense of the author’s handwriting, and the specific sense of the self-written name) is a comparatively opaque and democratic form of self-writing. What confessional literature does rhetorically and discursively, autograph does graphically—both gestures attempting to reveal the mystery of the maker’s identity. Could this identification of writing and selfhood then make the confession album, as one early twentieth-century commentator phrased it, a “psychological Crystal Palace,” a formidable summarizing symbol of Victorian personality? 5 A typical novelty autograph album (actually produced in 1909, but Victorian in conception) suggests autograph’s enigmatically revelatory symbolization in the nineteenth century. Secret Signatures of My Friends is a narrow, octavo book bound in red cloth. 6 The title page identifies author and publisher in the conventional way, and an ink stamp on the reverse indicates reception by the British Museum on 6 April 1915. This is clearly a book. But what kind of book has blotting card pages, pink and absorbent on one side, white and shiny on the other, and almost no textual content? The brief preface states, “This little book is intended to be a sort of secret Treasury for the safe keeping of our Friends Signatures.” Signatures were written onto a sheet of paper, then transferred to the blotting-paper pages while wet, leaving a reversed imprint. 7 Thus the enigmatic epigraph “As in a mirror” (a translation of the...

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The British Library's “most lavishly‐illustrated book to date” (better even than their Annual Report?) is Treasures of the British Library, ISBN 07123 0155 0, 290 x 219mm, £25, by Nicolas Barker and the curatorial staff of the British Library, illustrated with 138 colour and 190 black‐and‐white photographs of outstanding items in the Library's collections. Printed books, illuminated manuscripts, papyri, autograph albums, maps, music, oriental material of all kinds, stamps, paintings, prints, photographs, ephemera, sculpture, furniture, sound recordings and newspapers are all featured so there cannot be many examples from each category, but they have been chosen as landmarks in the history of the development of the national collection and the choices made will be of great interest.

"Princeton Memories with a Golden Sheen": Student Autograph Albums of the Nineteenth Century

"Princeton Memories with a Golden Sheen": Student Autograph Albums of the Nineteenth Century

IX. Illustrations of Costume in the Alba Amicorum

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries small, brightly coloured pictures seldom more than three inches high were often painted in autograph albums (Alba Amicorum). It is here intended to describe those which illustrate the dress of all ranks of society in England, Italy, and France. In England, social historians have occasionally reproduced some of them, French costume historians have made use of them, while the Italian writers on costume prefer the larger and more accurate woodcuts in the contemporary costume books of Cesare Vecellio and others. On the whole they have not attracted the attention they deserve.

Popular Songs from New York Autograph Albums 1820–1900

Popular Songs from New York Autograph Albums 1820–1900

Autograph Albums in the Ozarks

Autograph Albums in the Ozarks