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Jeremy Barlow: Audiovisual Presentations

Chopin and Parisian Artistic Life, 1847 - 8: Fanny Erskine's Recently Discovered Diary

A family story that an ancestor knew Chopin led eventually to the discovery of a diary kept by my great great grandmother Fanny Erskine, in which she recounts a two month visit to Paris in 1847-8 for singing lessons with the renowned Manuel Garcia. She stays with friends of Chopin, and the composer himself auditions her as a suitable pupil for Garcia. She meets Chopin on several other occasions, along with other leading figures in Parisian artistic and musical society. The diary is one of the few sources of information on Chopin at this lonely period of his life, just after his final break with George Sand. Many slides of Parisian life and art are included, as well as music by Chopin and his contemporaries. Visit the Chopin Society's website at www.chopin-society.org.uk.

Kwiatkowski's Fryderyk Chopin at the Piano (c. 1847)

Dance: Manners, Morals and Class. A Social History from the Renaissance to the Romantic Eras

'Do not spit or blow your nose too much' advises a 16th century dance treatise. From the mid-15th century onwards detailed descriptions of dances, their music, and expected behaviour and etiquette show the great importance of dance in people's lives. The lecture continues through the baroque era to the emergence of the waltz, which swept all the old court dances away; though not without moral censure of the lax behaviour it was supposed to have engendered. For more information on historical dance, visit the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society's website at www.dhds.org.uk.

Live music also available.

Miniature from Giovanni Ebreo's dance treatise MS (1463)

Hogarth and the Performing Arts: Cultural Contrasts in 18^th Century London  

'My picture was my stage and men and women my actors' wrote William Hogarth near the end of his life; he loved the theatre, yet the theatrical and artistic taste of high society frequently exasperated him. Slides and associated music show how Hogarth enjoyed contrasting the world of Italian opera, pantomime, French dancing masters etc. with the street life of impoverished ballad singers, solo fiddlers, booth theatres and other entertainments, and how he used these contrasts to embellish and reinforce his moral messages. For Hogarth bibliography details, contact hogarth_bibliographer@web.de.

Live music also available.

Detail from Hogarth's The Enraged Musician (1741)

Musical and Cultural Life in Shakespeare’s England

Copiously illustrated with slides and musical examples, the lecture portrays not only the high art of court masques, music-making and dancing among the gentry and nobility, and the Shakespearian stage, but also the broadside ballads, country dances and theatrical jigs of popular culture; demonstrated too is the way Shakespeare and other dramatists drew on both strands for material in their plays.

Live music also available.

Mayses Waler's Minstrels Entering a Country House (c. 1610)

Nursery Notions: the Illustration, Music and History of Nursery Rhymes

The lecture starts with a history of nursery rhyme books from their humble beginnings in the 18th century to the classic productions of Crane, Caldecott and Greenaway in 1870s and 80s. Then comes a historical examination of the rhymes themselves (many are much older than the books), concluding with a discussion of the fanciful theories developed about origins by Victorian antiquarians. Sad to say, there is actually little evidence that 'Ring a Ring a Roses' has to do with catching the plague! Many musical examples are included.

From Randolph Caldecott's Hey Diddle Diddle (1882)

The Cat and the Fiddle: Images of Musical Humour from Medieval to Modern Times 

Pigs playing bagpipes, monkeys fiddling, cat orchestras with owls conducting, humans and hybrids playing fire irons and kitchen implements: such images go back to the middle ages, where they often occur in the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts or as church sculpture. Mock music later becomes a feature in Renaissance Flemish and Dutch art (see for example Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights) and in the 18th century is adopted for satirical purposes by Hogarth and other artists in Britain. In Victorian times musical humour finds its way into children's book illustrations, while musical cartoons of 20th century artists such as Gerard Hoffnung and Ronald Searle are enjoyed by adults and children alike.

Quirinus Boel after
David Teniers, 17th Century.

Two new lectures: The Enraged Musician: Hogarth’s Musical Imagery (based on Jeremy Barlow’s recently published book), and The Beggar’s Opera: Britain's Most Successful Musical Show .

 
Enquiries to:
Jeremy Barlow
38 Leverton Street
London
NW5 2PG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7267 7176
Fax: +44 (0)20 7267 0127
E-mail: jrmybarlow@aol.com