Musings in the Music Library #1

Daniel Neal, fellow librarian at the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library.

The following vignette was sent by Daniel Neal from the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library in a mail to the SABC Music Library and the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra Library:  

"Library collections such as the ones we shepherd are full of stories both practical and mysterious, and their atmospheres are permeated with that musty tinge of stories long gone and never to be recalled.  
Even more so with the three of us, as all three libraries have not come from an unbroken tradition and place of worship nor have we spent our acolyte apprenticeships at the feet of revered Masters who passed on Tradition and Knowledge.  
Coming into this room of mine is sometimes like disturbing a gathering of ghosts who mutter an inaudible and foreign language; I can catch the odd word but miss the grammar entirely.  
I occasionally go beneath the practical and take out some old Elgar score, unplayed for 80 years, and hold it in my hands as if it might speak of musical meanings and events long gone.  
And of course it remains unintelligible, whispering though it does..."

A regular posting of these musings to follow.