[Scott Goddard, musicologist] Manuscript and Typescript sections of an apparently unpublished work on 'British music and its present state' with letters

Scott Goddard (c.1895-1965), British musicologist

Published by -1932, 1931

About this Item

WITH: 2 Typed Letters Signed, 3 Autograph Cards Signed, 1 Typed Card Signed to Mary Eversley, Covent Garden Opera, with copies of two replies.The collection as a whole is in good condition on aged paper. ITEM ONE: 90-page typescript headed 'II | ANTECEDENT', beginnning 'It has become a commonplace of musicology, at least in this country, that the first two decades of the Twentieth Century show an immense increase of creative activity in the composition of works of music by an astonishingly rich group of their [sic] young composers. They are now considered the leaders of what we may call the Modern English School, and already behind them there is pressing forward a fresh group of younger artists with the same vitality, the same ideas, but different methods.' ITEM TWO: thirty-three page manuscript extract from the same work, with typewritten insertions, headed 'CONCLUSION', resuming 'the arguments put forward in the introduction [.] in the light of whatever information thte intervening chapters have shed on the problem of British Music and its present state'. Eversley was plainly employed in typing up Goddard's manuscript, and their correspondence, variously signed by Goddard 'Scott', 'S' and 'S. G.', and with the copies of Eversley's two replies unsigned, is written in a chatty, flirty style. In a letter of March 1932, from his address at Lodge Hill, Ditchling, Hassocks, Sussex, Goddard apologises for 'forcing my own affairs on you at a time when you must be distressingly full of your own'. While it is 'dull work', he hopes it will 'take your mind off present troubles'. In an earlier letter (3 December 1931) he explains that his 'prospective (no, real) publishers are most eager that this work I am "on" should be kept as quiet as the grave. So, as regards that, look on yourself as my confidential secretary and say not a word. I mention this as important, because you are, as it happens, intimate with some who, having dealings with a certain set in town, would delighted to queer our (mine and the publishers') pitch if they ld. Twig?' He later describes her as 'such a wonderful decipherer'. 'The whole thing is about 7000 long, but as soon as may be I'll start nibling from the wrong end on this machine and so between us we might get it all "off" reasonably quickly.' One of Eversley's replies ends 'Scottie dear you've no idea what fun it will be to see you again. I suppose you will say you haven't time or you don't think you can manage to be up in town, or would 18th January do? and what is more stomachs or no stomachs we are going to get roaring drunk, I haven't had a clear head and upright carriage for two months for nothing.' COPAC does not indicate any work by Goddard from which the two extracts are likely to have come, so one must assume that it was never published or published under a pseudonym. A reference by Goddard on one card to 'a further little snippet of Maggie' might seem to support the latter supposition. In 1928 Eversley had appeared in the Lance Sieveking London 2LO production 'Love', with 'Music arranged by Scott Goddard'.

Seller Inventory # 26596

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [Scott Goddard, musicologist] Manuscript and Typescript sections of an apparently unpublished work on 'British music and its present state' with letters
• Publisher: -1932
• Publication Date: 1931