The Letters of Charles Burney – serie
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The letters of the great eighteenth-century historian of music and man of letters, Dr Charles Burney (1726-1814), friend of Samuel Johnson and Joseph Haydn, are here collected and published in chronological order for the first time. This initial instalment of a projected four-volume edition of the Letters, edited from manuscript and other sources, opens with the earliest surviving letter, written in 1751 when Burney was an obscure country organist. It concludes in December 1784 with the death of Samuel Johnson.These are the letters of the active years which saw Burney's remarkable rise to the head of his chosen profession, music. They chronicle his musical travels in Europe, and his literary activities as a scholar and author of the Continental Tours, the first two volumes of his famous History of Music, and the Commemoration of Handel, written at the behest of George III. They also document Burney's membership in the celebrated literary coterie at Streatham, and the emergence as a novelist of his daughter Fanny, whose Evelina and Cecilia appeared in these years.
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This book contains Charles Burney's letters from the age of 74 to 80, a period during which he retired from teaching but, far from slowing down despite frequent bouts of illness, continued to write, publishing his last book, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Abate Metastasio, and writing 1,752 general music articles and musical biographies for Rees's Cyclopaedia in a mere four years. Discussions of musical matters in these range from deliberations of foreign instruments to theoretical concerns such as the doctrine of the Trinity applied to music, to the history of dramatic music in Italy, and to more mundane technical matters such as the origins of ledger lines and the staff. Although he was his time's preeminent scholar of older music, Burney was a staunch defender of new music by contemporary composers against the sneers of the English Handelians. Of special interest is his heart-felt defence of Haydn's The Creation against the disparagements of the critic Willam Crotch.In contrast to his progressive views on music, Burney was a political conservative. A self-proclaimed 'alarmist', he had much to worry about in these years. His fears included the possibility of not living to finish the Cyclopaedia articles and the loss of £2,000 worth of books owing to the bankruptcy of his publishers. The Napoleonic Wars and their effects on domestic politics are of special concern throughout the volume illuminating Burney's hatred of the French Revolution and deep-rooted distrust of Napoleon and the Peace of Amiens.Nonetheless, despite his labours, the eminently clubbable Burney found time for travel. The letters detail jaunts to Bristol and Wells Cathedrals, visits to Quarley in Hampshire; stays at Bulstrode Park in Buckinghamshire, and holidays in Cheltenham. Highlights are a hiking accident on Worcestershire Beacons in which Burney falls and injures his hip and a holiday with a granddaughter in Clifton where he describes the Parade, the assembly rooms, the hot wells, riverside walks, and ladies riding donkeys. Whether working at home in Chelsea, visiting friends, or travelling throughout the countryside, the indefatigable Burney was never still for long.
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This volume of letters by Charles Burney, the first to be published since 1991, runs from 1794 to 10 January 1800, beginning with his recovery from a debilitating attack of rheumatism, continuing with the death of his wife in 1796, and ending with the shocking death of his daughter Susanna. Certain leitmotifs, typical of Burney's concerns, stand out throughout the volume: his trepidation over the war with France and its effect on domestic politics, his exhausting social life, his travels, and his publication of the memoirs of the poet and lyricist Metastasio.A staunch monarchist and a self-confessed 'allarmist', Burney is haunted 'day and night' by the French Revolution and the threat that Republican France poses to 'religion, morals, liberty, property, & life'. He frets frequently over those he considers to be domestic Jacobins, a word he uses forty-seven times in the course of the volume to describe anyone whose politics differ from his own conservative values.Although Burney turns sixty-eight in April 1794, in this volume he barely slows down his habitual hectic pace of teaching and publishing. In the summer of 1795, he publishes his final book, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Abate Pietro Metastasio, despite a hectic social life that sees him hobnobbing with the elite in society and politics and a love of travel that takes him to the homes of friends in Hampshire and Cheshire and into his past on a nostalgic visit to Shrewsbury, his childhood home.
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This second volume of the letters of Dr Charles Burney follows directly from the first, published in 1991, and contains roughly two hundred letters written between 1785 and 1793. In these years, Burney consolidated his reputation as a musicologist, publishing his account of the Commemoration of Handel (1785) and completing A General History of Music (1789). Continuing to teach, he had a busy schedule, filled with dinners, assemblies, and concerts. During these years, Burney moved from St Martin's Street to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where he held the post of organist. He remained active in musical circles, helping to promote foreign musicians and young performers. He welcomed Josef Haydn to London in 1791. As a proprietor of the Pantheon, which burned down in 1792, Burney noted competing efforts to establish a new opera house. He helped organize the musical band taken on Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792. Seeking materials for his research, Burney borrowed manuscripts from George III and corresponded with colleagues in England and abroad. Burney also discussed literary subjects and contributed to the Monthly Review. A friend of Horace Walpole, he socialized with the Bluestockings. He was a frequent attender at the Literary Club and supplied Boswell with anecdotes of Johnson. Burney writes movingly of the passing of the artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds.Having married twice, Burney kept in touch with a large family and visited his daughters in Mickleham, Surrey, and Aylmer, Norfolk. He tried to help his son, Charles Burney Jr, restore his reputation (after the disgrace of expulsion from Cambridge) and supported his daughter, Frances, on accepting--and then resigning from--a position in the Queen's Household. Initially alarmed when she married a penniless French émigré, he soon began to lobby on behalf of French émigré priests and enlisted Frances to pen a pamphlet for the cause. While holding strong views himself, Burney kept friends on both sides of the political divide. Burney was closely engaged with the musical, literary, scientific, and political circles of his day. Informative and entertaining, his letters add considerably to our knowledge of the man and the age.