A lost' Vaughan Williams song is exciting news but what else remains to be found'?

"In a box in the archives of London’s Morley College Elaine Andrews came across a previously unknown Vaughan Williams song. Titled Before the Mirror, it sets a Swinburne poem that itself was inspired by a Whistler painting. Hearing it played on Radio 4’s PM on Monday [58 mins in] reveals music of surprising tonal adventure and expressive ambiguity, written shortly after Vaughan Williams married Adeline Fisher in 1897. And the manuscript's workings, its crossings-out and corrections, are a fascinating insight into Vaughan Williams's creative process."

"One of the most significant musical finds of all time was the treasure-trove of manuscripts by Florence Price found in a derelict house in St Anne, Illinois in 2009, once Price's summer home, that included her two violin concertos, Fourth Symphony and dozens of other pieces. That discovery revealed not only wonderful music, but also pointed to the priorities and prejudices of music historians."

"The discovery of previous unknown manuscripts by the most familiar composers — a single page of Mozart, an exercise by Beethoven, a sketch by Haydn, say — often happen because historians know where to look for ephemera of lives whose every artefact has been combed over for centuries. But that had not been the case for Price, or for other composers who have been musicologically marginalised. Their work is supposed to be lost simply because no one had been looking for it."

A previously unknown song by Ralph Vaughan Williams, titled Before the Mirror, was found in a box in the archives of London’s Morley College. The song sets a Swinburne poem inspired by a Whistler painting. Hearing the piece on Radio 4’s PM shows tonal adventure and expressive ambiguity, composed shortly after Vaughan Williams married Adeline Fisher in 1897. The manuscript’s crossings-out and corrections provide insight into his creative process. The discovery is framed within broader patterns of musical finds, including Florence Price’s manuscripts found in 2009, which revealed both valuable music and historical biases. Unknown works often remain undiscovered when historians have not been looking, especially for composers who have been musicologically marginalized.

Read at www.theguardian.com