Talk:David Munrow

References

In the phrase "teaching English under the British Council Overseas Voluntary Scheme", "Overseas Voluntary Scheme" is a red link. Never having heard of an Overseas Voluntary Scheme run by the British Council I wondered if it should have been "Voluntary Service Overseas" and whilst searching for clues I came across this article on the Medieval Music & Arts Foundation website which starts:

David Munrow (August 12th 1942 - May 15th 1976) - A discography

Conception & research: Pierre-F. Roberge
For comments, additions and corrections pfr@videotron.ca
Last update: 01/07/2007

This is an "under construction" and for now a quite complete discography of David Munrow.

BIOGRAPHY

      (This biography is based closely on an excerpt of James Durant's text appearing on the back cover of the Angel edition of
Munrow's Renaissance suite, with corrections from Gillian Munrow, and minor editing.)

      David Munrow's passion for early music and musical instruments commenced in 1960 when he was 18. Teaching in Peru under the
British Council Overseas Voluntary Scheme, he became interested in South American folk music and took back to England with him
Bolivian flutes, Peruvian pipes, and dozens of other obscure instruments. The following year he entered Cambridge as an English major.
There a crumhorn hanging off a friend's wall aroused his interest and led him to delve deeply into an independent study of
Renaissance and Medieval music.

This article also adds:

For further reading, I suggest one interview that appeared in the Gramophone (May 1974, p. 2009 - David Munrow Talks to Alan Blyth)
and "Obituaries" in July 1976 edition of the Gramophone (p. 154). The last one gives to the reader a general understanding of the 
personality of this "man of manic energy."

--John Stumbles 13:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is the VSO. I started collecting some stuff on Munrow (eg the biog in the DNB) but editing the article is a bit daunting!! Bluewave 13:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This article's apparently erroneous reference to "British Council Overseas Voluntary Scheme" still stood as of today's date. A biographical site on Munrow offers confirmation that the scheme was, as suggested above, VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas), but perpetuates the notion of VSO being a British Council scheme, which to the best of my knowledge it is not and never has been. I have gone ahead and edited the present article to refer to VSO and drop the British Council tag. Nandt1 (talk) 02:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Responding indirectly to the questions that have been raised here, the webmaster of the biographical website "David Munrow: Pied Piper" has recently reviewed his sources and revised the discussion of DM's teaching stint in Peru. I have in turn brought our text into line with what is now written there, which describes the programme as "the Britsh Council student teacher scheme". Nandt1 (talk) 21:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The Devils film

I'm just wondering if an error has been made. In the article on David Munrow someone has stated that he "contributed" to the musical score for Ken Russell's film The Devils. But in the Wiki article on that movie, it says music by Peter Maxwell Davies. There is no mention of David Munrow. Also, his expanse of instrumental skills goes way beyond the three mentioned in the summary box. The entire recorder family for a start! I'm not making any edits yet, but there is room for discussion here. Musicmaker (talk) 23:40, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Citogenesis?

Thanks for finding sources for the claims about Munrow's death, @Cnbrb:, but I wonder whether the BBC article is an example of what XKCD has called citogenesis (https://xkcd.com/978/). The version of this article as of July 2016 read, "In 1976 Munrow committed suicide by hanging himself while in a state of depression; the recent deaths of his father and father-in-law, to whom he dedicated his sole book, are thought to have contributed to his decision to take his own life. He had, however, attempted suicide by drug overdose the previous year." The recently cited BBC article from November 28, 2016 reads, "He suffered from depression, which was possibly exacerbated by the recent deaths of his father and father-in-law, to whom he dedicated his only book, Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance." That verges on plagiarism, IMO, and certainly points to the Wikipedia article as the source for the BBC article, so the BBC article could hardly be a legitimate source for those otherwise unsupported statements in the Wikipedia article. And that text about his father and father-in-law actually dates to before the publication of Electric Eden, which uses that same (admittedly shorter) phrase. So it's entirely possible that that book too got that factoid from the Wikipedia article, making it another instance of citogenesis. The Maxine Handy source, on the other hand, looks righteous, as the article as of 2009 said nothing about his 1975 suicide attempt, and Handy is more cautious in attributing reasons for Munrow's death. I propose we drop the other two sources, and revise the text more in line with Handy's treatment of the incident. What do you think? Jbening (talk) 04:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

That's entirely possible - if you have better sources then by all means replace the citations with better ones. I was only concerned that this part of the article had been left unsourced, and once citations are missing, it tends to result in deletion of valid content. It's a terribly sad story and I would hate to see it removed on a technicality, so if you can improve it, please do. Thanks for bringing it up. Cnbrb (talk) 09:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)