Archive Item of the Month – Sept 2021
Carl Friedrich Abel (Cöthen, 22 December 1723 – London, 20 June 1787, Member EM001)
Christian Ferdinand Abel, father of Carl Friedrich, was a violinist and viol player at the court of Prince Leopold I of Anthalt-Cöthen (1694-1728) at the time that Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was appointed Kapellmeister in 1717. Abel senior must have been good friends with J.S. Bach as the composer was godfather to Abel’s first child. On his father’s death in 1737, it is likely that the earlier connections with the Bach family were used as Carl Friedrich went to Leipzig and studied with J.S. Bach. Charles Burney (1726-1814, EM053), who knew Abel, wrote
“Abel’s musical science in harmony, modulation, fugue, and canon, which he had acquired under his great master Sebastian Bach, and taste under Hasse … had made him so complete a musician, that he soon became the umpire in all musical controversy, and was consulted in difficult and knotty points as an infallible oracle” (Charles Burney, A General History of Music, from the earliest ages to the present period (London: printed for the Author, 1789), vol.4, p.679).
Read More»Archive Item of the Month – August 2021
Henry Wood (1869-1944) and the Promenade Concerts.
Programme for Saturday 5 October 1929, Queen’s Hall, London, thirty-fifth season of Promenade Concerts. Donated, with a letter from Wood of 5 October 1938, by Rowland Dyson (RSM Member 00760) in July 1989.
The British musical summertime would not be complete without the excitement and scope of the BBC Proms. It draws together performers from across the world for programmes and performances of music. It is a festival experience with a wonderful sense of comradeship in the audience as well as with the performers.
Read More»Archive Item of the Month – July 2021
A letter from Christian Kramer (d.1834) addressed to C. Hamilton, of 19 Wardour Street.
This letter touches on several areas of musicological interest including provenance and the ownership of manuscripts, printing, publishing and editorial history, as well as the professional and personal connections between individuals.
Kramer was a performer, composer and arranger who had studied with the composer Peter von Winter (1754-1825), of whom the RSM holds an autograph of a March. A concert in the Argyll Rooms for William Hawes (1785-1846, Member A222) on Friday 30 April 1824 reveals that the programme opened with the overture from Handel’s Occasional Oratorio with “additional accompaniments” by C. Kramer. At the time of this letter, Kramer was also Master of the King’s Musick (1829-1834), spanning the reigns of two monarchs, namely George IV for whom he also led the private band, and William IV. We could therefore assume some authority on the discussions relating to the manuscripts in the Royal Collection.
Read More»Members selected to perform at the Sons of the Clergy Festival rehearsal and performance on 5 and 7 May 1795
Name | Dates | Instruments listed on application form |
---|---|---|
Elisha Archer | [ca 1760-1800] | Cello; Viola; Violin |
William Warren | [4 May 1777-March 1839] | Violin |
John Gwillim | [‘aged 73, March 1825’-before Dec. 1829] | Violin |
Martin Platts | [‘aged 21, 4 Jan. 1784’-‘dead 1817’] | Horn; Violin |
John Mahon | [‘about 35, 6 April 1782’-before 4 May 1834] | Clarinett; Viola; Violin |
George Nicholson | [‘aged 31, 7 April 1782’-30 July 1815] | French horn; Viola; Violin |
William Rogers | [‘aged 29, 5 August 1787’-Oct./Nov. 1799] | Horn; Viola; Violin |
Lewis Augustus Lavenu | [2 March 1768-August 1848] | Viola; Violin |
John Francis Wood | [bapt. 29 Oct 1760-before Dec. 1806] | Organ; Violin |
John Ambrose | [bapt. 31 Jan. 1763-expelled 1807] | Organ |
John Howels | [‘aged 23, 1 Feb. 1784’-before 3 Jan. 1813] | Clarinet; Violin |
Francois Cramer | [12 June 1772-25 July 1848] | Viola; Violin |
James Henry Leffler | [‘aged 21, 2 Jan. 1785’-17 March? 1819] | Clarinet; Oboe; Viola; Violin |
John Woodcock | [‘aged 78, 7 Oct. 1832’-27 Jan. 1835] | Violin |
William Higgins | [d. before December 1806] | Violin |
Thomas Lord | [‘aged 23, 7 Dec. 1783’-before 2 April 1815] | Horn; Violin |
Vincent Thomas Leander | [25 Feb. 1770-withdrew 1797] | Cello; Horn; Viola |
Lewis Henry Leander | [28 Feb. 1769-before 5 Dec. 1830] | Cello; Horn; Viola; Violin |
John Norborn | [‘aged 27, 6 Feb. 1785’-before midsummer 1804] | Viola; Violin |
Jacob Cubitt Pring | [bap. 3 Nov. 1770-before 10 July 1799] | Organ; Vocalist (Tenor) |
Samuel Webbe | [15 Oct. 1768-25 Nov. 1843] | Organ |
Charles Knyvett | [23 March 1773-2 Nov. 1852] | Piano; Vocalist (Tenor) |
Jonathan Nield | [‘aged 24, 1 Sept. 1793’-6 March 1843] | Vocalist (tenor) |
Thomas Greatorex | [5 Oct. 1758?-18 July 1831] | Harpsichord |
John Hindmarsh | [‘aged 24, 4 May 1783’-before 6 Nov. 1796] | Clarinet; Viola; Violin |
James Simpson | [‘admitted 1776’-before 2 Feb. 1800] | Viola; Violin |
George Shutze | [‘aged 30, 5 Oct. 1783’-fl.1799] | Violin ; He plays all instruments |
George Veale | {‘aged 31, 2 March 1788’-1833] | Viola; Violin |
Griffith Jones | [‘aged 21, 7 March 1779’-fl.1817] | Clarinet; Organ; Violin |
Joseph Major | [23 Nov. 1771-1828] | Organ; Viola |
Christoph Friedrich Eley | [July 1756-before March 1832] | Cello; Clarinet; Flute; Violin |
Charles Jane Ashley | [1773?-29 August 1843] | Cello |
John Frederick Alexander Griesbach | [2 June 1769-Jan. 1825] | Cello; Oboe; Viola; Violin |
William Sharp | [‘aged 23, 6 Feb. 1785’-1827] | Cello; Viola |
James Blake Adams | [‘about 35, 1 Feb. 1784-ca 1820] | Cello; Viola; Violin |
William Boyce | [25 March 1764-10 July 1823] | Double bass |
John Corfe | [30 July 1769-d. ?by 1799] | Cello; Double bass |
Thomas Bodley Francis | [bapt. 4 Sep. 1768-before 5 Sep. 1802] | Cello; Double bass; Viola; Violin |
Joseph Woodham | [8 Dec. 1767-25 Jan. 1841] | Double bass; Horn; Trombone; Trumpet; Viola; Violin |
James Holmes | [‘aged 27, 3 Aug. 1783’-5 Dec. 1820] | Bassoon; Clarinet; Violin |
John Mackintosh | [6 Feb. 1767-23 March 1844] | Bassoon; Violin |
George Thomas Taylor | [30 April 1769-before 1804] | Bassoon |
Edmund Denman | [‘{aged 68, 4 August 1822-1827] | Bassoon; Clarinet; Horn |
Johann August Kellner | [‘aged 32, 7 Sep. 1788’-17 Sep. 1835] | Bassoon; Cello; Trombone; Viola |
William Jenkinson | [August 1765-after Dec. 1827] | Bassoon |
John Frederick Alexander Griesbach | [2 June 1769-Jan. 1825] | Cello; Oboe; Viola; Violin |
William Foster | [‘admitted 1777’-before 7 July 1811] | Oboe |
James Aldwell Oliver | [‘aged 24, 3 March 1782’-21 Sep. 1818] | Clarinet; Oboe; Viola; Violin |
James John Cornish | [26 Feb. 1767-before 5 Jan. 1805] | Clarinet; Oboe; Violin |
Michael Sharp | [ca 1773-5 Dec. 1840] | Flageolet; Flute; Oboe; Viola; Violin |
John Pope | [‘aged 52, 5 Nov. 1786’-before 7 April 1799] | Oboe |
James Sarjeant | [‘admitted 1769’-Sep. 1798] | Trumpet |
Laserre Purney | [‘aged 22, 7 Oct. 1787’-before 5 Dec. 1802] | Clarinet; Trumpet; Viola; Violin |
Hezekiah Cantelo | [played in 1784 Commemoration Concerts-before Oct. 1811] | Bassoon; Trumpet |
Thomas Hill | [‘about 37, 7 Nov. 1784-before 2 March 1799] | Horn; Trumpet |
Richard Godfrey Ashley | [8 Sep. 1774-11 Oct. 1836] | Kettledrums; Organ; Viola; Violin |
Christian Nicolai | [‘about 60, June 1786’-before 5 Jan. 1800 | Trumpet |
Archive Item of the Month – March 2021
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (1786-1826)
Pencil drawing of Weber by an anonymous artist; [1826]. Presented to the RSM in 1908.
Read More»Archive item of the month – September 2020
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (London 15 August 1875 – London 1 September 1912)
Two early songs by the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a violin student at the Royal College of Music (RCM) from 1890, starting composition lessons with Charles Villiers Stanford in 1892 and receiving an open scholarship in the following year. His studies ended at the RCM in 1897 and his contemporaries had included other famous composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, Frank Bridge and William Hurlstone.
Read More»Archive Item of the Month – January 2020
Beethoven 2020 : 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth
Head and shoulders painted plaster bust of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), clad al’antica, after a bust by Johann Nepomuk Schaller (1777-1842) of 1827. The sitter’s cloak is gathered at the right shoulder with a morse, the whole atop an integral socle. Rectangular name-plate below unlettered.
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