School of Culture and Creative Arts

PhD Studentship award

Issued: Fri, 17 May 2013 17:02:00 BST

British Film Music of the Twentieth Century: the Legacy of Muir Mathieson

The University of Glasgow’s School of Culture and Creative Arts and the British Library are pleased to announce a three-year PhD Studentship under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) Scheme, to commence 1 October 2013. The successful applicant will receive full funding (UK/EU rate £13,726 for 2013/14, increasing annually), plus associated expenses (£550 yearly maintenance payment from AHRC; up to £1,000 per annum from the British Library to cover travel and related costs).

This PhD will focus on the extraordinary legacy of Scottish composer and conductor Muir Mathieson (1911-75), whose monumental contribution to British soundtracks, across several film and TV genres from the early 1930s to the ‘70s, earned him the nickname ‘Tsar of music for British films’. As ‘musical director’, Mathieson oversaw (and often conducted) the soundtracks for hundreds of notable feature films and shorts, from the early sound classic The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) through Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) to the star-studded historical epic Becket (1964), as well as several dramatic and documentary TV series (e.g. War In the Air, 1954-55). An active proponent of British music, he commissioned original film scores from Arthur Bliss, William Walton, and Ralph Vaughan Williams and composed a few of his own, while also arranging the music of such composers as Brahms, Liszt, and Wagner for (e.g.) the celebrated British New Wave film The L-Shaped Room (1962) and the Stanley Donen comedy Once More, With Feeling! (1960).

This Partnership offers a collaborative supervisory team that brings together two of Glasgow’s leading researchers in Film Music, musicologist Dr. David J. Code and film scholar Dr. Ian Garwood, with the Curator of Music Manuscripts at the British Library, Dr. Sandra Tuppen. The successful candidate will profit from the academic and practical resources of both partner institutions, becoming a full participant in the international community of research students at Glasgow’s College of Arts while also having the opportunity to gain first hand professional experience of curatorial work at the British Library in London, including cataloguing, digitisation, conservation and exhibitions work. The student will be allocated office space in the Library and be able to participate in the Library's rich programme of public events, study days and student seminars and to disseminate their research findings to academic and non-academic audiences. In the longer term, the blend of academic research and curatorial work (including digital curation), should considerably enhance employment-related skills while inspiring a project with considerable potential for knowledge exchange and public impact.

With the proviso that applicants must plan their research with a view to making substantive use of the British Library’s extensive Muir Mathieson archive along with many related archives relevant to British film music, they are welcome to shape the precise proposal according to their own interests, skills and initiative. Possible areas of research may include:

  • The hitherto neglected role of the ‘musical director’, both in Mathieson’s British context and the international film industry more widely
  • Mathieson’s status as a musical ‘auteur’, alongside the directors and composers more traditionally given such recognition
  • The relationship between ‘composition’, ‘arrangement’, and ‘compilation’ in the history and aesthetics of British and international cinema
  • The connections between film music and musical culture in Britain more generally, examining Mathieson’s role as an intermediary figure
  • Comparative analysis of the aesthetics of music for ‘dramatic’ and ‘documentary’ film, as exemplified in selected works supervised by Mathieson
  • Comparative analysis of so-called ‘classical Hollywood’ film scoring and the practices exemplified by Mathieson, among others. (Note, for example, his new soundtrack for the UK version of the seminal 1950 US noir film Night and the City).
  • Mathieson’s collaborations with particular directors/producers/studios.
  • Historical analysis of the relationship between film music and music for television, again as exemplified in Mathieson’s work and in his documented exchanges with (e.g.) the BBC and/or major film producers
  • Mathieson’s film scores as they function in the films themselves, with the analysis informed by the production details revealed through the archive.
  • Mathieson’s intersection with wider cultural-historical phenomena, e.g. his work in collaboration with the propaganda arm of the War Office during the Second World War, his 1953 troubles with the US House Un-American Activities Committee, his involvement with documentaries of a socialist or progressive nature, etcetera.

The British Library’s Muir Mathieson archive, comprising correspondence and other papers, music manuscripts and photographs, is currently uncatalogued, and a catalogue of the archive could form an appendix to the thesis and be used as the basis for the British Library online cataloguing.

Applicants must have a good first degree in an appropriate subject, and a Master’s degree or other professional experience relevant to the scope of the project. The ability to read music manuscripts is essential. The student will be required spend part of their time in London and part in Glasgow.

Residency Eligibility

In order to apply, you must fulfil the AHRC’s residency criteria.

For full details, please see the AHRC’s Guide to Student Funding: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Student-Funding-Guide.pdf

Please contact Dr. Ian Garwood if you have any queries or would like to discuss the studentship informally: Ian.Garwood@glasgow.ac.uk.

Further particulars and full details of the application process can be found here: CDP further details.

Applications should be e-mailed to Ian Garwood at Ian.Garwood@glasgow.ac.uk by Thursday, 20th June 2013.

Short listed candidates will be called to interview either in the British Library on Tuesday, 2nd July or in University of Glasgow on Wednesday, 3rd July (candidates will choose which interview date/location suits them best).

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