Italians Serenade London for Christmas in the 1820s

Lazzari, Trompe l'oeil Still Life 18th C

Loretta reports:

There are a couple of interesting bits in this excerpt from Hone’s Every-Day Book. The first part reminds us that ordinary Londoners didn’t have anything like the access we do to music. If you were well off, you could go to the opera, ballet, or theater, or you would dance at Almack’s to some of the latest pieces from abroad. For ordinary people, London had its street musicians, true, as well as cheaper theatrical entertainments. Italian music by Italian musicians, however, seems to have been rather uncommon in the 1820s.

The second item I’d call to your attention is Hone’s reference, a little further on, to Londoners’ attitude toward Italian musicians a generation earlier, which this Rowlandson image illustrates. It is a far cry from the gentler and appreciative tone of Hone's report.

"Previous to Christmas 1825, a trio of foreign minstrels appeared in London, ushering in the season with melody from instruments seldom performed on in the streets. These were Genoese with their guitars.  Musicians of this order are common in Naples and all over Italy; at the carnival time they are fully employed, and at other periods are hired to assist in those serenades whereof English ladies hear nothing, unless they travel, save by the reports of those who publish accounts of their adventures. The three now spoken of took up their abode in London, at the King’s head public-house, in Leather-lane, from whence ever and anon, to wit, daily they sallied forth to ‘discourse most excellent music.’ They are represented in the engraving below, from a sketch hastily taken by a gentleman who was of a dinner party, by whom they were called into the house of a street in the suburbs.

Italian Minstrels in London,
At Christmas, 1825

Ranged in a row, with guitars slung
Before them thus, they played and sung:
Their instruments and choral voice
Bide each glad guest still more rejoice;
And each guest wished again to hear
Their wild guitars and voices clear."

Images: Sebastiano Lazzari: Trompe-l'œil Still Life, 18th century; illustrations and clipping from The Every-Day Book or Guide to the Year, William Hone, first published 1826

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Friday Video: Beautiful Music from an 18thc Harp

Susan reporting,

Here's a wonderfully peaceful way to ease into the weekend: harpist Nancy Hurrell plays a short selection on an 18thc French pedal harp in the collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Made in Paris around 1785 by master luthier and harp-maker Godefroi Holtzman, the harp, right, is an exquisitely beautiful instrument, a work of art even if it didn't make such lovely music. For more information about the harp, please see the museum's page here.

Romance from Sonata in B-flat major (op.13, no. 1), 1775-90, by Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz, performed by Nancy Hurrell.

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Friday Video: Listen to the Earliest Known Surviving Piano

Susan reporting,

While we were away on our spring break, we missed one of those daily celebrations that the Internet so loves, and honors with a hashtag: #PianoDay. Fittingly, this was the eighty-eighth day of the year, with a day for each of a piano's keys.

But perhaps everyday should be piano day. In the world of instruments, pianos are relative newcomers. The first were invented by Venetian-born Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1732), who built instruments for the Medici court in Florence. The piano in this video is the earliest known to survive today, and is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For more information and additional photos, see the museum's entry here.

In this video, pianist Dongsok Shin performs the Sonata in d minor, K.9 by Domenico Scarlatti. Enjoy!

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Friday Video: Listen to a Guitar Made by Antonio Stradivari in 1679

Isabella reporting,

Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737) is arguably the most famous maker of stringed instruments of all time time. The sound of his violins and cellos is considered magical, almost mystical, and experts have argued endlessly about what exactly makes them so special. Around 650 of his instruments are known to survive today; most of these are the legendary violins.

Much rarer still are guitars made by Stradivari. Only five still survive. Of those five, only this one remains playable. Known as the Sabionari, the guitar dates from 1679.  Here Rolf Lislevand, a musician who specializes in performing early music, plays a tarantela by Spanish composer Santiago de Murcia (1673-1739.) What a wonderful way to begin the weekend!

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Friday Video: A Musical Interlude With Four Women

Loretta reports:

Today's video offers no nerdy history, unless we take into account the music selections, which range from Vivaldi to Kurt Weill.

The group is the classically seductive Salut Salon quartet: Angelika Bachmann (violin), Iris Siegfried (violin and vocals), Anne-Monika von Twardowski (piano) and Sonja Lena Schmid (cello).

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Woody Guthrie & That Famous Song

Woody Guthrie 1943

Loretta reports:

Some years ago, I visited an exhibition about Woody Guthrie. I hadn't high expectations. My folk-singing days were (luckily for the listening public) centuries behind me, and I thought I knew as much about him as I needed to: He was a folk music hero, he was Arlo Guthrie’s father, he was a strong early influence on Bob Dylan, and he wrote “This Land Is Your Land.”

The show was an eye-opener. Woody Guthrie turned out to be vastly more interesting than I’d supposed. But I won’t attempt to summarize his short, extremely creative life in a blog post. There’s abundant material in this Wikipedia entry, and this New Yorker review offers some insights and anecdotes.

Today, on his birthday, I just want to talk about the famous song. If you don’t know it, you can find all kinds of versions on YouTube.

What you probably won’t find easily is a version of “This Land is Your Land”containing the lyrics he originally wrote. It wasn't quite the paean to the U.S.A most of us assume it is.

One version of the last stanza is:

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me.

Here’s an article on the subject. You can read other versions of the lyrics here, and here’s what seems to be the first draft.

As to the copyright, here's what he wrote: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do."

You can hear Woody Guthrie singing it here (minus that last stanza):

Image: Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie, 1943 courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

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Friday Video: A Musical Interlude

Zoffany, Self-Portrait with his daughter & others

Loretta reports:

For today, I present a short musical interlude, with a little something unexpected.

Image: Johan Joseph Zoffany, Self-Portrait with His Daughter Maria Theresa, James Cervetto, and Giacobbe Cervetto (ca 1780), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.


Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.
 
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Queen Victoria, a Polka, & 8,000 Soldiers, 1853

Isabella reporting,

The most popular image of Queen Victoria today is the one shown in late 19th c. photographs: a short, stout, elderly woman in widow's weeds, staring grimly away from the camera.

But it was a much different queen that captivated her subjects early in her reign. Victoria was only 18 when she was crowned queen in 1837, and 21 when she married Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She was painted, drawn, and engraved to show her to flattering advantage as a small, slender, and pretty young woman. The majority of the country would never see her in person, and in those days long before television, this image of the elegant queen was the one that was accepted and revered.

It was also an image used to sell everything from fashionable clothing to soap. The young queen's reign coincided with technological advancements in wood engraving, and color printing (chromolithography) in the 1840s that made illustrated news and culture magazines like the Illustrated London News and Harper's Weekly  both more affordable and more lavish. Gone were the days when prints were laboriously and often crudely colored by hand. Now consumers wanted color illustrations on everything, and publishers were happy to oblige.

These same middle-class consumers were also buying pianos for their parlors and sheet music to play on those pianos. There was an explosion of new social dances to learn - waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles - plus themes from popular plays and arias from the latest operas. To entice buyers, sheet music for these pieces was titled with names that would tie them to popular public figures, political events, exotic locations, and even scientific discoveries, and printed with beautiful illustrations on the covers.

The sheet music for The Camp Polka, above, combines several trends. Printed in London in 1853, the illustration shows the summer camp on Chobham Common in Surrey. The Chobham Camp was the scene of the first large-scale military maneuvers in England since the Napoleonic Wars. Patriotic fervor is usually at its highest right before a war. With the Crimean Wars looming in the future, the spectacle of 8,000 men and 1,500 horses drew crowds of spectators - including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Here the stylishly uniformed queen and prince, riding on spirited steeds, are shown surveying the camp in a neatly arranged show of British might and military prowess. Patriotism, royal celebrities, and horses: what better way to market a polka?

Many thanks to Andrea Cawelti, Ward Music Cataloger, Houghton Library, Harvard University, for her assistance with this post.

Above: The Camp Polka by Chas. d'Albert, sheet music for solo piano. Lithographed by John Brandard, published in London: Chappell, 1853, by M.& N. Hanhart. Harvard University Library. 

Friday Video: Beautiful Music from an 1890 Music Box

Isabella reporting,

We're not officially done with the holiday season until Twelfth Night on January 6, which is reason enough to share this video. According to the YouTube caption,

This is a coin-operated Polyphon music box (c. 1890) in the collection of the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Here, it plays a rendition of Oh Come, All Ye Faithful on a pressed metal disk. As the disk rotates, projections on the back turn wheels which pluck the teeth of the comb. Listen for the sound of the coin dropping at 1:10.

It all makes for a beautiful sound from the past, and one to relish before the craziness of the new year begins all over again.

Casual Friday: Weird Al Sings the Grammar Blues

Loretta reports:

Do incorrectly placed apostrophes drive you to distraction?  Do you wish severe penalties could be imposed on people who use quotation marks for emphasis?  Then this video is for you.

The illustration, of my own well-used copy of Fowler, offers a clue about my feelings. I’m even in the dwindling minority who refuse to stick an e on the end of chaperon and firmly believe that the whole comprises the parts.

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A Gothic Grand Piano for July 1826

Gothic grand piano

Gothic piano description

Loretta reports:

This is not at all what we’re accustomed to, in the way of grand pianos.  But as the text informs us, a piano was a relatively new instrument, so there wasn’t much in the way of preconceived notions about what it ought to look like.  The idea, as explained, is to make the instrument match the decor, and the Gothic* style was well loved.  Though many associate classic Greek simplicity with this time period, "more is more” tended to be the design ideal, most notably for the sovereign (formerly Prince Regent), King George IV.

*Previous posts on the Gothic style include Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, looking glasses, dairy houses, and cottages.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source.

Friday Video: Benjamin Franklin's Glass Armonica, 1761

Isabella reporting,

One of Benjamin Franklin's most ingenious inventions was an unusual musical instrument he called the glass armonica, from the Italian word armonia, or harmony.

Most everyone has run his or her dampened finger along the rim of a crystal wineglass or goblet, producing an other-worldly, high-pitched echo (and often sending all pets scurrying from the room.) In 18th c. Europe, water-tuned wineglasses were combined in carefully tuned sets and "played" to the enchantment of audiences. Among those who enjoyed this eerie music was Franklin, visiting London in 1761. Franklin resolved to refine the concept of the water-tuned glasses into a more convenient instrument, and the result was the glass armonica. For more of the history, see this website devoted to the instrument.

While the new instrument was a great success with aristocratic audiences in the 18th c. – even Mozart composed for it – today there are only a handful of performers worldwide. One of them is William Zeitler, featured in the video here, who not only explains the armonica, but also plays several short pieces. If you're in the mood for more, here's a link to Mr. Zeitler playing the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite - it's never sounded more wonderfully ethereal.

And if you're a fan of the paranormal/steampunk TV show Sleepy Hollow (yes, I've already admitted I'm a Sleepyhead, too), then you've already seen and heard a glass armonica. In the November 18 episode Necromancer, guests at Abraham's house were being entertained by a glass armonica performance. Could there be a more appropriate soundtrack?

NHG Library features Vauxhall Gardens: A History

Loretta reports:

I’ve been wanting to write about this book ever since I bought it.  The trouble is, we try to keep these posts short, and it’s hard (for me, at any rate) to keep from raving endlessly.  In a nutshell, Vauxhall Gardens: a History, is a wonderfully exhaustive study of Lambeth's famous pleasure gardens, from their beginnings in 1661 as the New Spring Gardens to their demise 200 years later.

Since I hadn't needed to research it, what I knew about Vauxhall was mainly what I’d gleaned from reading traditional Regency romances.  I've now learned how much more Vauxhall had to offer in the Regency than taking chances with rakes in dark walks or eating thin ham or dancing at a masquerade.

Here’s a description of the first Vauxhall appearance of Madame Saqui, the tight and slack rope performer, in 1816:

"[She ascended] to a considerable elevation, and running with wonderful velocity upon a rope extending half down one of the walks, in the face of a tempest of fireworks, and a change of blue lights, which suddenly converted the shades of evening to the brightness of noon.”

The book includes an evocative illustration of this feat amid the "tempest of fireworks."  You'll find as well engravings of other garden attractions, like the Submarine Cave, balloon ascents (and catastrophes), fetes, and performers.  Among other wonderful images is Louis Jullien holding an umbrella while he sings for a packed audience, all under umbrellas.  As is the orchestra.

View online here

If you want to learn about all the “modern” art that was on display, or see what a season ticket looked like, or learn when Paganini played there, or find out when the Hermitage finally got its hermit, this is the book for you.  The appendices offer the kinds of minutiae Nerdy History Persons dote upon:  detailed catalog of the paintings and what became of them, a chronology of important events, and—be still my heart—maps of the gardens, with locations of various buildings and features, for 1742, 1751, 1818, and 1850.

With the book’s help, I was able to locate some of the images, which you can find on our Pinterest Pages here, here, and here.

Vauxhall broadside courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 US

Casual Friday: Kitty from Kansas City

Loretta reports:

Before the Beatles, before Elvis Presley, before even Frank Sinatra, the singer who made girls swoon was Rudy Vallee.

Along with love songs and the blues, he performed the occasional novelty number.  One of my personal favorites, because I appreciate clever comic lyrics, is “When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba.”  (Try singing along.)

But “Kansas City Kitty” is a close second on a similar theme (the not-so-intellectual), and this clip features Betty Boop, in her first appearance.




 Photo image of Rudy Vallee courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

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Return Engagement: Intrepid Musician Ann Ford Thicknesse

This week I'm swamped with more deadline-itis, coupled with the much more delightful diversion of having my DD home for spring break. What better excuses to revisit one of my favorite past posts from 2010?

Isabella reports:

"Intrepid" doesn't begin to describe the character and life of Ann Ford Thicknesse (1737-1834). Genteelly born, her father indulged her with an excellent education (she spoke several languages) and extensive music lessons. She soon displayed a rare talent for music and sang beautifully, as well as playing several instruments.

But while her father encouraged her in concerts for friends, he forbid her to perform on the stage. They quarreled so violently that she moved from home and into the house of a friend, announcing that she would support herself by her music. Her furious father had her arrested and hauled back home. Undeterred, she arranged a series of subscription concerts, and her father hired ruffians to disturb her first theatrical performance. Only the intervention of one of her aristocratic supporters permitted the show to go on.

Her concerts were a sensation, and made her a celebrity. Among other instruments, she played the viola da gamba, scandalously (albeit properly) positioning the viola between her knees. More scandal followed when she had her portrait painted by friend Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788 ), himself an amateur musician. Shown with her instruments, her pose – with her legs crossed at the knee like a man – shocked society almost as much as her independent, intelligent gaze looking to one side that ignored the viewer. Handsome though she was, there was clearly none of the melting, doe-eyed society beauty about Ann.

The Earl of Jersey was smitten, and proposed that Ann become his mistress for a sizable annual sum and the promise to wed her when his ailing wife died. Indignantly she refused, and in defense of the rebuffed earl's attempts to slander her,  Ann published A Letter from Miss F--D, addressed to a Person of Distinction in 1761. In it, she argued that "a young woman may sing in public...or be a public singer, with virtue and innocence." Over 500 copies were sold the first week, and the letter was also published in the Gentleman's Magazine. The earl's rebuttal, A Letter to Miss F--d, was not nearly as popular.

After performing in London and in Bath, she traveled to Suffolk with her good friend Elizabeth Thicknesse, who sadly died soon after in childbirth. Six months later in 1762, Ann married her friend's widower, Captain Philip Thicknesse (last seen here on the 2NHG writing travel guides.) The match raised eyebrows: not only was Philip twenty years Ann's senior, but he drank, whored, gambled, and took laudanum to infamous excess. He was litigious, quarrelsome, and an open supporter of slavery, and his personality was so irascible that he was known as "Dr. Viper." He wrote ferociously and often slanderously, on subjects as wide-ranging as male-midwifery to fraudulent automatons.

Yet it was a most happy marriage for nearly thirty years. The couple traveled extensively through Europe. Their eccentric entourage included not only a parakeet, but a monkey who was dressed in livery and rode postillion before their carriage; Ann's personal luggage included her viola, two guitars, and a violin. She also began writing and publishing books of her own, including works on playing the guitar and glass harmonica, travel, a novel, and, in 1778, the three-volume Sketches of the Lives & Writings of the Ladies of France.

Undeterred by the French Revolution, Ann and Philip were traveling to Paris in 1792 when Philip suffered a seizure and died in Ann's arms in their carriage. Griefstricken, Ann buried him in Boulogne, but before she could return home, she was arrested as a foreigner and imprisoned for eighteen months. She was finally released by proving that she was no idle, unattached gentlewoman, but could support herself –– as a musician.

Returning to England, Ann continued to write and publish. In 1806, when she was 68, she was described as "the most singular, and if it may be added, the most accomplished woman of her day." How can we argue with that?

Click here for more about Ann and one of her favorite instruments, the glass harmonica.

Above: Mrs. Philip Thicknesse, nee Ann Ford, by Thomas Gainsborough, 1760, Cincinnati Art Museum

Friday Video: The Year was 1963

Loretta reports:

From Cliff Richard to a Miss World contest to the Beatles.  An interesting year in hairstyles, too.  We can reflect as well upon what was deemed a great figure in 1963.  And I have to wonder if anybody out there actually owns one of those Beatles wigs.

Illustration: Coming! Coming! The greatest moving picture and stereopticon exhibition of the season, 1909. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

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Friday Video: The Violinist's Reply

Isabella/Susan reporting:

This video isn't new, but it deserves another round of viewers. One of the greatest plagues of modern life is the un-muted cell-phone, ringing away where and when it shouldn't. Weddings, libraries, funerals, 'quiet cars' - we've all heard it. But while the rest of us must be content with furious glares at the offender, Lukas Kmit, the violinist in this video, displayed a much more original way to cope with a ringing phone. This performance was recorded in the Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in Presov Slovakia earlier this year.

Friday video: Yma Sumac

Loretta reports:

I vividly remember a moment in my childhood when, at my grandparents’ house, I happened upon the record album (and it was an actual album in those days), "Voice of the Xtabay."  The picture of Yma Sumac, so utterly exotic-looking, completely enthralled me.  At some point, I got to hear the record, and that was equally astounding.  Many years later, I wondered if she and her music were as strange and wonderful as I remembered, so I bought myself a copy.  It was still strange & wonderful.

You can hear a very clear recording of "Chuncho" & other cuts from the album at a site devoted to her.

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Friday Video: Bugler's Cry: A History of Taps

After some inexplicable glitch at YouTube last night, we're finally able to post this wonderful Friday Video to continue our observation of Memorial Day. The bugle call known as Taps is 150 years old this year, and from the first notes it's both instantly recognizable and hauntingly evocative – and especially appropriate for this weekend.

Friday Video: 'Morning Mood' on the Metro

Isabella/Susan reporting:

Today's video isn't particularly historical, but it is a delightful way to start the day, and the weekend, too. One morning last month, members of the Copenhagen Philharmonic surprised commuters on the subway with a flash-mob-style interpretation of Edvard Greig's Morning Mood, Peer Gynt Suite, no. 1. Op no. 1. Even if you're not a great fan of classical music, you'll recognize this piece - and enjoy the response of the commuters to this impromptu concert.