Browse Exhibits (2 total)
High Notes and Low Notes
Phyllis Smith, who wrote the bulk of The Story of Claribel, wished for her book to bring more recognition to Charlotte Alington Barnard, her career, and also her father's legacy (see Smith and Godsmark, page 1). Despite Smith's efforts, though, Claribel has largely been forgotten today.
The scope of this exhibit is limited (frankly, because I'm constructing this website for a school assignment and I don't have time to go into massive amounts of detail). Nonetheless, I hope to lead you, dear reader, through some of the ups and downs of Claribel's ten-year career.
The Claribel Musical Universe
In Claribel's time and beyond, it was common for songwriters who had a hit on their hands to pen official "sequels" or "replies" to the original. Because copyright law was (bluntly) a mess in this era, unofficial sequels also abounded. Search the phrases "reply to", "sequel to", "answer to", or "companion to" on WorldCat, narrow your results to musical scores, and you'll still turn up literally hundreds of songs in this vein.
Claribel herself wrote sequels to several of her songs, all of which were published through Boosey and Co. (Boosey and Sons until mid-1864), like the vast majority of her output, although it's difficult to tell if any of these sequels eclipsed the originals. Her songs also inspired a legion of unofficial sequels, however, mostly in America but with some in England as well. Claribel and her publisher John Boosey would have had little recourse to challenge these publications -- especially the American ones, because no international copyright treaty between the US and England existed yet. The one time they kind of tried was in March 1868, when they took the music publisher Sinclair and Co. to court for, essentially, trademark infringement. They lost. (The case was dismissed, rather, but essentially they lost.)
This exhibit showcases the official and unofficial sequels I've found so far, the canon and fanfiction alike of the Claribel Musical Universe.