King Charles II c.1663
Studio of John Michael Wright |
Music in Bath grew with the
tourist trade. As luminaries began to come to take the waters, so they sought
entertainment for the intervening hours in various social diversions, among
which music was prominent. In 1663, only three years after the Restoration,
Charles II came to Bath with his wife Catherine of Braganza in a bid to
alleviate her infertility. (His was never in doubt, given the plentiful and
ever-increasing crop of illegitimate children by a string of mistresses.
Barbara Villiers c.1670
by Sir Peter Lely |
One of them, Barbara Villiers, had a portrait painted of herself with Charles'
illegitimate son, in a pose improbably - and improperly - reminiscent of the
Virgin and Child. (Taken as such, it became an altarpiece in a Roman convent
until the nuns realised their mistake). Catherine remained lamentably barren,
but one John Bannister, Director of the King's Violin Band (an idea which
Charles had stolen from the court of Louis XIV), penned a charming string suite
entitled "Music of the Bath".
"Comfort of Bath"
by Rowlandson |
Allegedly, the musical
tradition of Bath in the eighteenth century began with a toad. In the early
1700s, one Dr. John Radcliffe, Royal Physician, was a fierce critic of the
unhygienic conditions that prevailed in the public baths (fed by the hot
springs that gave the city its name). He threatened to have the baths closed
and (possibly more effectively) put into the waters a toad, then widely
believed to exude venom from its skin. To "counteract the poison" of the
unfortunate amphibian, the Master of Ceremonies Beau Nash suggested soothing it
with music, and, accordingly, started a subscription for an orchestra.
The Pump Room, 1841 |
Public music in Bath in its
heyday took three forms.In the Pump Room itself, an orchestra played while
visitors drank the obligatory quantity of the water. Lydia, in Smollett's
novel Humphrey Clinker, describes the experience: "The noise of the
music playing in the gallery, the heat and flavour of such a crowd, and the hum
and buzz of their conversation, gave one the headache and vertigo&." (The
gallery in question, reached by a ladder, was semi-circular and contained five
musicians led by a trumpeter). The Bath Herald in 1799 was rather more
enthusiastic: "The Pump Room Band is one of the oldest and best establishments
of this place; it draws visitor and inhabitant to one general place of morning
rendezvous, whilst the inspiring melody of the Orchestra spreads a general glow
of happiness around."
The Lower Assembly Rooms |
On Tuesday and Friday
evenings, orchestras played in the various Assembly Rooms for the public
balls. Concerts were part of the cultural entertainment during the day as
well as in the evening, at which visitors of "rank and fortune"as were well
skilled in music" were permitted to join with "the common band of performers".
Sometimes the "common band" were none so common, including such oustanding
artists as the castrato Rauzzini (now buried in Bath Abbey), for whom Mozart
wrote his "Exsultate, jubilate". One of Rauzzini's appearances, in 1779, is
described by the diarist Edmund Rack as "the most brilliant Assembly my eyes
ever beheld. The Elegance of the room, illuminated by 480 wax Candles& the
blaze of Jewels, and the inconceivable Harmony of near 40 Musicians, some of
whom are the finest hands in Europe, added to the rich attire of about 800
Gentlemen and Ladies, was, altogether, a scene of which no person who never saw
it can form any adequate idea&. La Motte and Fischer surpass all
description. On the violin and oboe they are not equall'd by any performer in
Europe. Rauzina (sic) is a Eunuch and has a fine shrill Pipe&" (The
tenor Michael Kelly recalled, during a visit in 1796, that the greatest
singers were so flattered to be invited to take part in Rauzzini's concerts
that they would perform without fee and even pay their own expenses) . Local
girl Elizabeth Linley was a frequent performer on the Bath concert stage until
1773, when she moved on to Covent Garden. In 1789, an enthusiastic reception
was accorded one Bridgtower "whose taste and execution on the violin is equal,
perhaps superior to, the best professor of the present or any former day" all
the more surprising in that the player was a ten year old "Mulatto", allegedly
"the Grandson of an African Prince".
And, pari-passu with the growth of music and theatre, opera also came to
Bath. In 1728, John Gay directed his own Beggar's Opera to such packed
houses that as many were turned away as were admitted.
Bath Abbey, West Front |
Church music also played a part in the social life of Bath. Church attendance
had a somewhat secular flavour being part of the daily calendar in the same way
as a visit to the Pump Room or the ball. On 19th February, 1740 the
new Abbey Organ was "open'd with great Solemnity" and also with a sermon, a
"great Number of Instruments to accompany the Organ, and two Anthems". But all
was not sweetness and light. An outraged correspondent named "Z" thundered in
the pages of the Bath Herald in 1796: "Permit me &to express my regret that
more attention is not paid to the Musical Part of Divine Service in the Abbey
Church& where the mind is fatigued by a dull monotony disgusting to the
musical ear.& unmeaning Strains of squalling Boys."
The city fathers
were not slow to cash in on the prestige accorded to an on-tap musical
establishment and, in 1733, re-established the City Waits, whose business was
"to attend the Corporation on all occasions" for which the remuneration was
four guineas per annum. They may have had second thoughts as to the wisdom of
this action when, in 1773, a refusal to desist from playing in Lodging Houses
"to the great disturbance of the sick" lead to their stigmatisation as
"vagrants and extortioners".
Public performances
notwithstanding, music was played every evening in every cultured household
throughout the city. Young ladies were expected to be competent in singing or
piano playing if they had even the remotest talent, but in some houses the
talent was in lavish supply.
|
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
by Russell |
In 1721 a fortunate Mr. Morris found himself
present at a private party where Geminiani "entertain'd us with the utmost
Civility as well as his wonderful Hand on the Violin." Sheridan claimed to
have "discovered" the Linley household (q.v.). In a letter of 1770 he
describes the family members and says "The public concerts do not begin 'till
after Xmas; but we heard them at Mr. Linley's house". Rauzzini's
establishment in Perrymead "breathed content and happiness& his hospitable
table was always supplied with the best viands and choicest wines& and
every evening we had music of the best sort, Rauzzini himself presiding at the
piano-forte and singing occasionally."
Johann Fischer by Gainsborough |
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH (1727-1789) spent fourteen years in Bath from 1759 to 1774 as a successful society
portrait-partner. He spent much of his spare time playing chamber music with
his friends. The composer William Jackson wrote: "There were times when music
seemed to be Gainsborough's employment and painting his diversion. He never
had application enough to learn his notes" yet apparently hoped to acquire
proficiency by a sort of osmosis by playing on instruments belonging to famous
musicians. The musicians included the viola da gamba player Abel and the
oboist Fischer both friends who sat for portraits, and the latter of whom
became his son-in-law. Gainsborough never really wanted to produce portraits,
inclining rather to the unfashionable (and unprofitable) school of landscape
painting. He admitted in a letter that he was "sick of portraits and wishing
to take [his] Viol de Gamba and walk off to some sweet village where [he] can
paint landskips."
William Herschel by Abbott |
WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822),
born and raised in Hanover, was 28 when, in 1766, he was appointed to the
"agreeable and lucrative" post of organist to the Octagon Chapel on Milsom
Street in Bath. In 1767 he played the violin, hautboys (oboe) and harpsichord
at the New Year's Benefit Concert, which so impressed the reigning Master of
Ceremonies of the city, Samuel Derrick, that he was offered a place in the Pump
Room band. William's sister, Caroline, who kept house for him, had had a few
surreptitious violin lessons from her bandsman father - her mother believing
that the only education proper to a young woman was the ability to knit.
Caroline subsequently taught herself to sing "by imitating the violin parts of
concertos with a gag between her teeth". This somewhat unorthodox approach
appears to have borne fruit, because, after some further training from William,
she began to give up to five concerts a week in Bristol and Bath, always
conducted by her brother. In their spare time, the brother and sister indulged
their hobby of astronomy culminating in William's discovery of the planet
Uranus, for which he was knighted in 1816 by George III. Their house at 19 New
King St., from whose garden Uranus was discovered, is now the Herschel Museum
and includes a collection of eighteenthcentury musical instruments.
Elizabeth (age 14) and Thomas (age 12) Linley c.1768
by Thomas Gainsborough |
THOMAS LINLEY, harpsichordist,
composer and singing teacher, was a considerable force in Bath music in his own
right but also contributed five prodigiously musically talented children to the
local scene. Elizabeth, Thomas junior, Mary, Samuel and Maria put in their
several appearances in 1754, 1756, 1758, 1760 and 1763 respectively. The
girls were all accomplished singers and actresses by their early teens, and
Elizabeth's future career spanned elopement with Richard Sheridan and
performing at Covent Garden. Thomas was playing violin concertos at the age of
seven and went on to compose extensively, including a period of study in Italy
where he met Mozart, three months his senior. Samuel was a more than competent
oboist before joining the navy at 13. These auspicious beginnings were sadly
unrelated to their endings: in 1778, aged 22, Thomas drowned in a boating
accident and Samuel (still only 15) died of a fever on board ship. Consumption
claimed all three girls between 1784 and 1792, and their father's death in 1795
was attributed, not unreasonably, to a broken heart.
William Beckford by George Romney
(National Trust Photographic Library) |
WILLIAM BECKFORD (1760-1844),
one of the great eccentrics, is best known in Bath for the tower that bears his
name on top of Lansdown Hill. In his own time he was renowned for his
scandalous private life and for his championship of all things generically
known as "Gothic" notably his novel, Vathek, and Fonthill Abbey near
Salisbury, which he filled with the unknown and unappreciated pictures of the
Italian "primitives". But he was also a composer (who allegedly had a piano
lesson from Mozart when both were young children) and whose music has only
recently been rediscovered in the Bodleian Museum, Oxford and edited in
performance editions. Much of the music is vocal (both songs and TheArcadian
Pastoral , scored for child soloists and chorus), but he also attempted
quite large-scale orchestral works, such as the Phaeton Overture which features
the newly developed clarinet in the wind section.
Jane Austen: a watercolour by
her sister Cassandra in 1804 |
The name of JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) is indissolubly linked with Bath, but she actually spent only four
years living in the city (1801 1805) and cordially disliked the place. In the
two novels set partly in Bath she contrives to portray the social life of the
city without one reference to any specific piece of publicly performed music.
The ball attended by Catherine Morland and the relentlessly vapid Mrs. Allen at
the beginning of Northanger Abbey is extensively described in terms of
the numerous company, none of whom possesses the inestimable advantage of being
acquaintances, and the word "dance" occurs occasionally but never "music".
Late in Persuasion, Anne Elliott attends a concert at which she
encounters Captain Wentworth who "was very fond of music". The only reference
to the musical performance is Anne's ability to translate the words of an
Italian song and, of the second half of the concert: "another hour of pleasure
or of penance was so be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or
the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed."
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