Monthly Archives: Jan 2024

Liberating a musical relic

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In discussions of artistic and intellectual property it is often remarked that “There is nothing new under the sun.” in reference to the frequency with which works under copyright turn out themselves to have been copied or derived from older material which may or may not have been public domain already – such as popular film scores taking cues from classical compositions.

One example is Howard Shore’s In Dreams, part of his soundtrack to The Fellowship of the Ring. The melody, especially the first seven notes, came from the 1901 hymn This Is My Father’s World.

The lyrics were written by Presbyterian minister Maltie Babcock and set to music by composer Franklin Sheppard. Despite the musical similarity, thematically they are entirely different: Babcock’s lyrics are mainly about the beauty of natural creation, with a few explicit references to scripture, and obviously multiple references to the Christian deity. Shore’s song, in common with everything else in Jackson’s films, avoids any direct mention of Eru Ilúvatar. Principally the song seems to be about perseverance through adversity and the emotional pain of separation from close friends. Given how the story ends, it could be interpreted as anticipating reunification after death. That the song should allude to spiritual principles without actually naming a real religion is in keeping with Tolkien’s conception of the book (albeit he was Catholic not Presbyterian).

This was the favourite childhood church song of prominent atheist Penn Jillette, who even parodied it for the opening them of his podcast. Personally I only discovered the hymn when searching backwards from the FOTR score, and on further investigation it does not seem to have made much of a cultural penetration outside North America. Searching for it on YouTube mainly brings up American religious schools.

Given the song’s publication and Babcock’s death both occurred in 1901, with Sheppard dying in 1930, the music and lyrics have both been in the public domain for some time, so I was a little surprised to see that Wikimedia Commons did not have an audio file. I set about creating one, based on a photograph they did have of a printout of the sheet music. It had been a long time since last I used MuseScore, but in about an hour I had relearned enough to copy out the page, render it as a sound file and upload it. Obviously mine is instrumental only as MuseScore does not have a singing function and I did not wish to record my own voice for this.

EXTERNAL LINKS

  • This Is My Father’s World, performed by pupils of Fountainview Academy, British Columbia. They really seem to be leaning into the LOTR comparisons with the rowboats and the fallen leaves.
  • Extract from LOTR making-of documentary, showing the recording of In Dreams.
  • Rendition by Sean Holshouser. Twelve years and forty videos later (many of them being actual Christian songs), this remains by far his most popular.

The King’s Accession: Fast and Slow

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The royal journalist Robert Hardman recently released his latest publication Charles III. New King. New Court. The Inside Story, which covers the end of the previous reign and the beginning of this one. Confusingly the same book seems to have been published under at least three titles: I’m also seeing it called Charles III: The Making of a Modern Monarch and The Making of a King: Charles III and the Modern Monarchy.

Reading the whole thing will obviously take some time, but I have managed to get through the first few pages, including those covering the decease of Elizabeth II. I was particularly fascinated by this passage:

…for visibility, Prince Charles was raised on his mother’s mantra that ‘I have to be seen to be believed’. Immediately after her death, it became clear that he would abide by this. Duties and conventions which might have been spread over many months at the start of the previous reign kicked in almost immediately. His first broadcast as monarch was recorded within twenty-four hours (Elizabeth II’s first broadcast, which was by radio, came ten and a half months into her reign). There would be visits to all the home nations within days. Court mourning, which continued for two and a half months after the state funeral of George VI, would end precisely one week after that of Elizabeth II. In less than three weeks, the King’s cypher, ‘CIIIR’ (Charles III Rex), was ready and released for immediate use on post boxes, military uniforms and official documents. It had taken more than five months before the design for ‘EIIR’ was approved in 1952. Investitures were up and running again within the month.

Of course, this is still slower than I would have liked, especially in heraldic, numismatic and vexillological matters: Sixteen months into the present reign, there is still uncertainty about the arms of The Queen and the Prince & Princess of Wales (especially in Scotland), as well as His Majesty’s personal banners in most other Commonwealth Realms. Though in almost all cases it is trivial to predict what they ought to look like, there are few in which I am certain that such designs have actually been granted. In addition, I am still yet to personally encounter any coinage or banknote bearing the current monarch’s face.

The slowness in updating online profiles is particularly baffling, given that it requires no physical material to be changed. This month there has been a hint of movement by His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, whose Twitter icon now shows the Tudor crown, although the logo on the website itself still uses the St Edward version. The cover images for recent policy posts show both versions in use, suggesting that the filtering through of the new design is still ongoing.

UPDATE (19th February)

The crown logo is now updated across government websites.

A Patten Emerges

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On St George’s Day last year His Majesty appointed two new companions of the Order of the Garter – Lady Ashton of Upholland and Lord Patten of Barnes. Obviously that would mean their banners of arms would at some point be erected at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. At the time it was not public knowledge what their lordships’ arms actually were, if indeed they had any, and given how long it was taking to find out about Blair and Amos I was not optimistic of learning any time soon.

Today they were revealed by Major Alastair Bruce of Crionaich via what used to be called a Tweet. He shows photographs of two banners of arms along with an excerpt from an online article, which I will quote below:

Baroness Ashton served in the Ministry of Justice and later as the EU’s first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security policy. She contributed towards negotiating a peace settlement between Serbia and Kosovo. Red roses reflect the fact that Upholland, which forms part of Baroness Ashton’s title, is in Lancashire.

On Lord Patten’s banner the pearls allude to the crest of Hong Kong where he was Governor from 1992 to 1997. The blue field and crowns replicate the arms of Oxford University where Lord Patten has been Chancellor since 2003.

It is not clear precisely where Bruce found this information, as the message includes the web address of St George’s Chapel but does not specify an exact page. I have looked through the site to find a recent update about Patten and Ashton but found nothing. I hope this will be resolved soon.

As for the heraldic designs themselves: Patten’s arms are perfectly dignified if a little unoriginal. Having the shield resemble that of his university could make for a confusing sight should he try to impale them. Ashton’s banner is an overloaded mess redolent of the worst excesses of the early nineteenth century.

That the reveal of these arms took only nine months instead of eighteen is a positive sign. I hope that future grants of arms will become public even faster.

UPDATE (15th January)

Baz Manning informs me that the images and quoted text are from The Dragon, the community newsletter of St George’s Chapel.

Found in the Booth

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For the past few years I have kept a keen eye on the blog Heraldry Online by Stephen Plowman. Most of the heraldry community learn of grants of arms by updates on relevant authorities websites, or by the accounts given in volumes of Debrett’s. Plowman, however, posts a regular stream of photographs of the actual letters patent by which the arms were granted, spotting the historic documents as they come up for auction (typically after the actual line of armorial inheritance has gone extinct). Today he has posted one particularly important to me – the late Baroness Boothroyd.

I have written many times before about my history with her arms, but it is nice to see the definitive article at last. The text of the blazon is the same as in Debrett’s, but we now know the date of granting (8th October 1993) and the herald responsible (Conrad Swan).

Public Domain Day 2024

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Public Domain Day this year is a little different: Relatively few artists of interest (to me, at least) have been released from copyright in Britain (probably the most culturally significant is the poet Dylan Thomas), but there have been major happenings overseas.

J. R. R. Tolkien died on 2 September 1973, so The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set free today in countries with copyright terms of fifty years – most notably New Zealand, where Sir Peter Jackson adapted them for film. This might also have been the case in Canada, but the law was changed with effect from the end of 2022 to extend Canada’s posthumous copyright duration from fifty to seventy years. Tolkien’s works were thus among the first cohort to be delayed in their release. Of course, this only applies to works published in J. R. R.’s own lifetime – the great many posthumous works which were “edited” by his son Christopher (such as The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin) will likely remain copyrighted until 2091 and those after Christopher’s death edited by Brian Sibley (e.g. The Fall of Númenor) could stay well into the twenty-second century (that’s before we even consider any other significant involved persons who may wish to claim co-authorship credit). The absurdity of this situation is compounded when one remembers that John Tolkien originally wrote some of these story ideas as early as the First World War.

The other big IP-related news story this year is the very long-awaited expiration of the copyright on Steamboat Willie, the 1928 cartoon film in which Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their first proper appearances. This film is now arguably less famous as an artistic work than as a symbol of copyright disputes, with the copyright term having been extended multiple times by acts of the United States Congress. From 2007 onwards Disney has been using an excerpt of the film as part of its production logo, which many perceived as a shift in strategy to have the image protected as a trademark once their luck with copyright extensions ran out. The Wikipedia page for the film has undergone a vast series of edits in the past twenty-four hours as multiple screenshots and stills are newly available on Wikimedia Commons.