Music history from the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. Pianos, pianofortes, harps, viols, violins played during Jane Austen’s times. Musical Instruments were so important in most of the more affluent households in history that large industries grew all around the world to manufacture instruments, musical accessories, and to print sheet music. Musical instruction and encouragement could be found everywhere and both young ladies and gentlemen were encouraged to have musical appreciation. And of course, playing music was on the list of social requirements for all young ladies desirous of becoming a wife and homemaker.
London became Europe’s leading centre for the manufacture of scientific instruments and this led to the manufacture of more musical instruments as well as factories developed and rail transport helped the faster distribution of goods to regional areas. One of the first places that music was used to tell stories and to share enjoyment was in Christmas music. Because music was such an integral part of households, music was always a feature in Magazines. There were advertisements everywhere for musical instruments for sale, for sheet music, and for music lessons. And of course, of most interest to the ladies were the hundreds of fashion plates included in magazines where people were depicted with their musical instruments.
HN_6-7-8 Music General History NotesHN_6 Music General History Notes, books2read.com/suziloveMusicGeneral
Love music? Love Jane Austen and the Bridgerton family? Treat yourself to a nonfiction book on music history. #Bridgerton #Music #History #JaneAusten https://books2read.com/suziloveMusicGeneral
1775-1777 ca. Snuffbox With Medallion, Russian. Made by Johann Baltasar Gass St Petersburg, Russia. Gold, silver, cut diamonds; chased, engraved and pounced. via liveinternet.ru
18th Century Snuff Boxes. Not only were boxes made to serve a purpose, but decorative boxes of all types were prized, especially in the 18th Century when everything decorative and extravagant was in vogue and taking a pinch of snuff was fashionable. Snuff is made from ground or pulverized tobacco leaves and is sniffed from a pinch of snuff placed on the back of the hand. Flavorings were added to the tobacco to give a fast hit of nicotine and a lasting scent. Snuff began in the Americas and was used in Europe by the 17th Century.
1775-1777 ca. Snuffbox With Medallion, Russian. Made by Johann Baltasar Gass St Petersburg, Russia. Gold, silver, cut diamonds; chased, engraved and pounced. via liveinternet.ru
Snuff became popular from the mid 1600s to the mid 1800s and was more popular than smoking. Inhaling snuff, or snuffing, was first seen by a European missionary in 1493 in Christopher Columbus’s new world within Haiti’s indigenous Taino. Until then, tobacco had been unknown to Europeans, but its use spread quickly throughout Europe during the 1500s. By the second half of the 17th century, ornate boxes started being produced to keep the precious powder dry and an entire industry making accessories blossomed around the fashion of taking snuff. Noblemen, and some women, carried extravagantly decorated snuff boxes with them at all times and would offer a pinch of their own particular blend to friends and family. Therefore, these boxes were always on display and so it became a competition to see who could have the most bejeweled or expensive box possible.
Music history from the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. Pianos, pianofortes, harps, viols, violins played during Jane Austen’s times. Musical Instruments were so important in most of the more affluent households in history that large industries grew all around the world to manufacture instruments, musical accessories, and to print sheet music. Musical instruction and encouragement could be found everywhere and both young ladies and gentlemen were encouraged to have musical appreciation. And of course, playing music was on the list of social requirements for all young ladies desirous of becoming a wife and homemaker.
London became Europe’s leading centre for the manufacture of scientific instruments and this led to the manufacture of more musical instruments as well as factories developed and rail transport helped the faster distribution of goods to regional areas. One of the first places that music was used to tell stories and to share enjoyment was in Christmas music. Because music was such an integral part of households, music was always a feature in Magazines. There were advertisements everywhere for musical instruments for sale, for sheet music, and for music lessons. And of course, of most interest to the ladies were the hundreds of fashion plates included in magazines where people were depicted with their musical instruments.
1780 Red Wool Stays, or corset, and Panniers, British. Wool backed with linen or canvas, stitched with linen thread reinforced with strips of whalebone, lined with glazed linen, bound with linen twill tape, fastened with plain weave linen tapes and decorated with silk braid and silk ribbon. Phalanges, or fingers, spread over the hips to give support. Side panniers, or hoops, are made of cane. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K.
Back-lacing stays with a high narrow back with a wide curving decolletage and V-point in front, about 5 cm below the waistline. Decorative white lacing and white silk braids on centre front which is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Below the waist there are 19 tabs, or phalanges, or fingers. Laced through 13 eyelets at back. Compartments for the strips of whalebone are 4 – 5 mm wide, running vertically and diagonally. Centre busk of whalebone about 2 cm wide. Shoulder straps have an eyelet and extend from the front and fasten with tape at each shoulder back.
Stays were an essential item of underwear for women during the 18th century. By the 1780s, the fashionable torso consisted of an inverted cone shape. Achieving smoothness of profile and firmness of contour were the primary function of 18th-century stays, rather than emphasising the bust or constricting the waist. Although custom-made and very intricately designed, stays were usually very plain. On these stays a simple silk ribbon and linen tape serve as decoration and functional finishings.
The narrow rows of very fine, even hand stitching form the compartments into which thin strips of whalebone were inserted. Although the stays appear very rigid, whalebone was quite flexible. It had the added advantage of softening with the heat of the wearer’s body, allowing the stays to mold to her shape. When worn, the shaped and boned tabs at the lower edge would splay over the wearer’s hips, giving further fullness to the petticoat tied at the waist over the stays.
1795-1810 ca. Roller Printed Dress, English. Empire style, high-waisted, roller printed dress with skirt gathered at the back to create a full skirt and with simple V-necked bodice and long sleeves. Sleeves are closed with a narrow band of fabric which fastens with a hook and eye. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. 1810 ca. Sewing of Gown. 1795-1799 ca. Fabric Block Printing. Pattern of floral trails blends influences from Indian-painted and printed textiles, and woven silks, a style which remained popular until the end of18th century.
The pattern of floral trails seen on the printed fabric of this gown exhibits a blend of influences from Indian-painted and printed textiles, and woven silks, a style which remained popular until the end of the 18th century. The sleeves of this gown are closed with a narrow band of fabric, which fastens with a hook and eye.
The dress is styled with a high-waisted , fitted bodice, which fastens centrally. The neck, which is trimmed with a 1″ frill of matching material, is rounded a the back and V-shaped at the front. The bodice is lined with white cotton which extends 1/3 of the way down the full length tapered sleeves. A trimming decorations is attached to the wrist of the right sleeve (made from the same material and lined with white cotton), which fastens with a metal hook and eye at the hip. The skirt has an ‘apron’ style front with fastening tapes attached to either side, in addition to this there are vertical pocket slits situated at either side of the skirt measuring 11″. The front and rear sides of the skirt are constructed from one width of fabric – 39.5″ wide. The waistline at the back of the skirt is gathered a the centre and is constructed from two pieces of material measuring 46″ wide.
The cotton has blue threads in the selvedges denoting English origin, and is block printed in a polychrome palette with pencilled blue on a white ground. The design consists of an all-over pattern of delicate floral trails of carnations, pinks an other stylised flowers interspersed by vertical arborescent meanders bearing exotic fruits and stylised flowers. The pattern repeat measures 10.5″ by 10″.
1792 Grand Piano, London, UK. Maker John Broadwood (1732–1812) Mahogany, oak, curly maple, ivory, ebony, brass. Credit: Mr. and Mrs. Jerome C. Neuhoff, 1957 via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org books2read.com/suziloveMusicPiano
HN_7 D2D Retailer Buy Link Music Piano History Notes
1777-1778 ca. Gold and enamel Cased Cylinder Watch with dumb quarter- repeat and en-suite Chatelaine, London, England. Via British Museum, London, UK. britishmuseum.org books2read.com/SuziLoveChatelaines
D2D_RetailerBuyLink_HN_9. Chatelaines and Chains History Notes Book 9 By Suzi Love. #regency Women in charge of houses wore long chains holding important household items around their waist e.g. keys, pen, notebook, sewing. books2read.com/SuziLoveChatelaines
The Assembly Rooms in Bath, UK. One of my favorite places to visit.
Bath had two assembly rooms in the lower part of the town but they weren’t large enough for the rapidly increasing population so on the 30th September, 1771, New Rooms were opened on the north east of the Circus, between Bennett and Alfred Streets. These Upper Rooms were designed by the architect, John Wood, and were in a better part of town so they became much more fashionable. They were called the New, or Upper Rooms, to distinguish them from the older Assembly Rooms in the lower part of the town.
They were a set of public rooms purpose-built for the 18th century form of entertainment called an ‘assembly‘, where a large number of people came together to dance, drink tea, play cards, listen to music, or parade around the rooms and talk and flirt. The four rooms are the Ball Room, the Tea Room or Concert Room, the Octagon Room, and a Card Room. The Upper Rooms held two balls a week, a dress ball on Monday evenings and a fancy ball on Thursdays during the Bath season which was from October to early June. These balls were so popular they attracted between 800 and 1,200 guests at a time.
John Wood raised the money for the New Rooms by a “tontine” subscription, which was like a lottery. By April 1769, £14,000 was raised amongst 53 people. When a subscriber died, their shares were added to the holdings of the other subscribers, which meant that the last surviving subscriber inherited everything.
The exterior of the Upper Assembly Room looks typically Georgian, but the interior is very grand and the high ceilings gave good ventilation on crowded ball nights and windows set at a high level prevented outsiders from looking in. Two long rectangular rooms flank the entrance hall and are linked by an octagonal room at the far end to form a U-shape.
1798 Fancy Dress Ball at the Bath Assembly Rooms.’
By Thomas Rowlandson.Interior of Assembly Rooms, Bath.Entrance to Assembly Rooms,
Now Fashion Museum.
Bath, U.K.Entrance to Assembly Rooms,
Now Fashion Museum.
Bath, U.K.1805 Interior of Concert Room, Bath. By John Claude Nattes
‘Bath Illustrated by a Series of Views.’
Via Suzi Love – suzilove.com
& Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org1799 Richard Nash Esq. Master of Ceremonies, Assembly Rooms, Bath From- 1799 The New Bath Guide Printed by R. Cruttwell.1771 The New Assembly Rooms Opened,
Between Bennet and Alfred streets,
Bath, U.K.
via Suzi Love – suzilove.com
& 1835 The Historical and Local New Bath Guide
Published By C. Duffield.
The Assembly Rooms are lit by a set of nine chandeliers, made for the building in 1771. Jonathan Collett of London originally provided a set of five chandeliers for the Ball Room when it opened in September 1771. Shortly afterwards the arm of one of the chandeliers fell off – narrowly missing the artist, Thomas Gainsborough, who lived nearby at the time. The Ball Room chandeliers were taken down and a new set was ordered from William Parker of London. Parker had already supplied three chandeliers for the Tea Room. It was agreed that Jonathan Collett should salvage the rejected set of Ball Room chandeliers and make one large chandelier to hang in the Octagon Room. The chandeliers in the three rooms had an average height of eight feet and they were made of Whitefriars crystal from the Whitefriars Glassworks in London and were originally lit by candles. The Ball Room and Tea Room chandeliers each had 40 lights and the Octagon chandelier had 48 lights.
During the 19th century, they were fitted for gas and were later converted to electric light. At the start of the Second World War, the chandeliers were put into storage and escaped destruction when the Assembly Rooms were bombed in 1942. During the extensive refurbishment of the building in 1988-1991, the chandeliers were restored by R. Wilkinson & Sons of London. The Bath Season ran from October to June. As the Season spanned the winter months and many activities took place in the evening it was essential to provide good artificial lighting.
The ball room is the largest of the three main rooms and is over 105 feet long and 42 feet wide and 42 feet high. It runs the whole length of the north side of the building and covers two storeys. The paint is called Ballroom Blue and was first created by David Mlinaric in the 1970s from an original colour swatch. “It is a stroke of luck that the colour sample of blue paint is still attached to the 1770s minute book of the Assembly Rooms Furnishing Committee.” said Lucy Powell, Assistant Archivist at Bath Record Office, “The building was bombed in 1942 so traces of the paint would never have survived otherwise.” From: Fashion Museum, Bath.
On the other side, the tea room is 70 feet long and 27 feet wide and all the rooms had huge chandeliers to give light. In 1777, a card room was added to the Octagonal Room. Before the Card Room was added, the Octagon Room became famous for card playing, the favorite leisure activity from the Georgian Era through to the Regency, as the Upper Rooms were open for card games every day except Sunday. The Octagon Room is dominated by Gainsborough’s portrait of the first Master of Ceremonies at the Upper Rooms, Captain William Wade. Bath’s most famous Master of Ceremonies, Richard “Beau” Nash, never knew this building as he died in 1761.
Bath_Octagon Room, The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers. The Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
Ball Room Chandeliers. The Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
Chandeliers. The Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
Chandeliers. The Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
Chandeliers. The Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
Chandeliers. The Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
Chandeliers. Regency Era Paintings,
Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.Regency Era Paintings,
Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.Regency Era Paintings,
Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.Regency Era Paintings,
Assembly Rooms,
Bath, U.K.
The tea room was used for refreshments, with tea generally served weak and black or perhaps with arrack and lemon, and on Wednesday nights during the Season concerts were held there. Fashionable visitors to Bath could also hold breakfasts there for their friends.
Many famous people visited the Assembly Rooms in the 18th and 19th centuries. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens both mention the Assembly Rooms in their novels and the diarist, Francis Kilvert, described a reception there in 1873. Subscription concerts were popular and many well-known musicians also visited, the most distinguished being Joseph Haydn, Johann Strauss the Elder, and Franz Liszt.
Today, the Octagon Room, the Tea Room, and the Cloak room Landings all showcase beautiful paintings and prints as the Upper Rooms were given to the National Trust in 1931. You can see paintings by Thomas Gainsborough and John Simmons as well as an Original ticket to the Thirteenth Dress Ball at the Assembly Rooms, 24 January 1803.
Since 1963, the Upper Assembly Rooms have also housed the amazing Fashion Museum. The building is owned by the National Trust and is leased by Bath & North East Somerset Council.
Covent Garden is within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and the parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal’s Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum.
In 1552, the land was seized by Henry VIII and granted to the Earls of Bedford. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. It was the first modern square in London, with Italian arcades and a flat, open space or piazza with low railings. This layout was copied in other new estates in London.
1555 John Russell, 1st Earl Of Bedford. By a follower of John Bettes. Given land of Covent Garden by Herny VIII after the dissolution of the Monasteries.
1650 The piazza of Covent Garden about 1650, as engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar. Courtesy University of Toronto.
1721-1789 ca. St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, London, U.K. From between two arches of the plaza. Watercolor with grey wash. By Thomas Sandy. Via British Museum, London, UK. britishmuseum.org
1800s Early Covent Garden Market, London, U.K.
In 1654, an open-air fruit and vegetable market grew on the south side of the fashionable square but over time the market and the surrounding area fell into disrepute. Taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and brothels opened up, the gentry moved away, and rakes, wits and playwrights moved in.
By the 18th century Covent Garden had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes such as Betty Careless and Jane Douglas. Descriptions of the prostitutes and where to find them were provided by Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, the “essential guide and accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure”.
Covent Garden’s market was always disorderly, the buildings in bad shape, and overcrowded with stalls, donkeys, carts, and peddlers. The small number of passageways into the piazza were small and with bottle necks of carts moving goods and market sellers fighting for right of way. The markets supplied fruits and vegetables, mostly homegrown but with imported goods increasing. Many sellers missed paying tolls for selling in the piazza or refused to pay them so the owner, the Earl of Bedford, took many people to court for not paying tolls. He realized the markets were in such poor condition that he couldn’t charge sellers until he improved them. In 1830, a new market hall was built with sections dividing the kind of goods sold which did improve things, but the markets remained chaotic. By 1890, people were again complaining about the narrow streets and congestion. The market hall provided a more permanent trading centre and Charles Fowler’s neo-classical building was erected to cover the market. As the market grew, the prostitutes moved on. The Houses of Parliament were the centre of Britain’s political world. But there was also an abundance of grand mansions and other buildings of interest in the City.
Covent Garden’s flower girls attracted attention by shouting:
“Two bundles a penny, primroses!”
“Sweet violets, penny a bunch!”
In 1851, Henry Mayhew wrote London Labour and the London Poor describing two types of flower girl. The young girls, or waifs, sold flowers to feed the family. The other type of flower girl stayed out late, doubled as prostitutes, and had bad reputations.
In 1913, Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford agreed to sell the Covent Garden Estate for £2 million to the MP and land speculator Harry Mallaby-Deeley, who sold his option in 1918 to the Beecham family for £250,000.
1809 View Of the New Covent Garden Theatre, London. From Hart Street, showing the King’s entrance. Watercolor drawn by James Winston. via British Museum.
1811 Bird’s Eye View of Covent Garden Market, London, UK. Main fruit, flower and vegetable market in London in early 19th century. Began here in 1656 with few temporary stalls in back garden of home of Earl of Bedford. Charles II granted market lease and in 1678 bought by Adam Piggot and others who built permanent stalls. By 1811, smelly, dirty, and overcrowded. Engraver J. Bluck. After Augustus Charles Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson published by Ackermann. Via British Museum, London, UK. britishmuseum.org
1827 Covent Garden Market, Westminster, London, U.K. By Frederick James Havell.
1835 Covent Garden Watch House, London, UK. Next to the church of St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. Two story white building with ‘Watch House’ painted on its upper floor is shown with a lively street scene in the foreground. via Museum of London.
1852 J.M.W. Turner’s birthplace in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. Brick terraced house at night with a figure in top hat walking past and two figures with a candlelight in the doorway. Watercolour with body color over graphite. Drawn by John Wykeham Archer.
In 1913,Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford agreed to sell the Covent Garden Estate for £2 million to the MP and land speculator Harry Mallaby-Deeley, who sold his option in 1918 to the Beecham family for £250,000. By the end of the 1960s, traffic had become congested until in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. In 1980, the central building re-opened as a shopping centre and then became a tourist location with cafes, pubs, small shops, a craft market called the Apple Market, and another market in the Jubilee Hall.
