A significant collection of music recently came to light at Weston Park, the ancestral seat of the Earls of Bradford on the Staffordshire–Shropshire border. This collection has been discussed by the author within the context of music-making among the social elite in the late eighteenth century, and some aspects of the family’s musical activities have been the focus of a book chapter.Footnote 1 What makes this collection particularly worthy of study is the amount of related material which contextualizes the array of composers, styles, genres, and scorings of the music, and points to a dynamic relationship between the music and its owners, the Bridgeman family. It reveals a great deal about the importance of music in the family, which serves as an excellent example both of music-making and patronage of musicians by nobility and gentry and of changing tastes in the eighteenth century. Far from being a static assemblage of printed music, there is significance in what was acquired by specific family members, whether music was bound or left in loose sheets, and whether it was removed from the house and later restored, sold, and amalgamated.
This article presents a catalogue of the music associated with Weston Park and the Bridgeman family, listing music which remains at the house today and items that were acquired and subsequently dispersed. It describes the various catalogues and documents which have been used to reconstruct the music owned by family members and discusses some items of significance in relation to their owners. Three case studies focus on Sir Henry Bridgeman, 5th baronet, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth, his eldest daughter and eldest son, and the music-making which the collection and associated material implies.
Castle Bromwich Hall, Weston Park, the Earls of Bradford, and the Bridgeman Family
Orlando Bridgeman (1606–74), 1st Baronet, was knighted by Charles I in 1643 as a reward for his allegiance during the civil war. In 1657, Bridgeman purchased the Warwickshire manor of Castle Bromwich and this became the nucleus of the Bridgeman estates for the next 100 years, which included land and property in Hodghill, Park Hall, and Clifton-upon-Dunsmore. His son, Sir John Bridgeman, 2nd Baronet, succeeded the title in 1674 and his son in turn (also John) inherited the family estates in 1710. Sir Orlando (1695–1764), 4th Baronet, married Lady Anne Newport, the third daughter of the 2nd Earl of Bradford in 1719. They inherited the Bradford ancestral seat, Weston Park from Anne’s brother, Thomas Newport, 4th Earl of Bradford, with whom the earldom had become extinct in 1762. With this inheritance, their eldest son, Henry, and young family relocated Weston Park and upon Sir Orlando’s death two years later, Henry became the 5th Baronet and the family seat was moved permanently from Castle Bromwich Hall. In 1794, Henry was created 1st Baron Bradford of Bradford. The earldom was later recreated in 1815 for Henry’s son (also Orlando), and Weston Park has served as the family seat ever since. It is the period between the third baronet and the first earl, the second creation, for which a large collection of music and evidence for the family’s musical activities survives at Weston Park.Footnote 2
The Weston Park Music Collection
The surviving music collection at Weston Park comprises around 250 printed and 70 manuscript items dating from the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries. Almost all the music is unbound; the few bound books are collections of late eighteenth-century song sheets and early nineteenth-century volumes that were produced with bindings. Most of the music dates from the time of the fourth and fifth baronets and several pieces have inscriptions proving ownership of various family members. With the aid of supporting documents in the family archives (the Bradford Collection), held at Staffordshire Record Office, it has been possible to determine when many of the works were acquired and when they were absent from the house, either due to family members leaving home or as a result of a sale.Footnote 3 These documents include four handwritten catalogues made by members of the family, a printed sale catalogue listing items of music, bills for music tuition, instrument hire and printed music from the family music tutor, family letters, and a more recent auction sale catalogue.Footnote 4 Although the surviving collection is not large, the reconstructed music collection demonstrates that music formed a central role the family’s cultural identity.
The accompanying data set to this article lists all surviving music in the collection and additional works which have been identified in the following supporting documents.
Eighteenth-Century Catalogues and Lists
The four handwritten cataloguesFootnote 5 created by family members in the eighteenth century appear to have been made for the same general purpose – as a finding aid to music they owned and used. There is no appreciable difference between the term ‘catalogue’ and ‘list’, as the documents all present the music in relation to their binding and in order of genre.
Catalogue 1: ‘A Catalogue of Musick’ (c. 1713)
This catalogue, written on one side of a single sheet of paper, lists four volumes containing a total of forty-three works. The catalogue implies that these were bound in separate part-books and organized according to the instrumental forces required (trios, solo sonatas, etc.) and that each book contained all the listed works for the ‘volumes’. Three of the volumes were of folio size, two were quarto, and there were ‘Two Large Solo Books with many written Solos in and a great deal of spare Paper to write upon’, listed at the end. Apart from the ‘Alberti’ concertos (the earliest known print of which dates from 1713), the majority of the works listed in the catalogue date from the 1680s to 1703. Of the pieces listed in this catalogue, only Bonporti’s Sonate da camera a tre, op. 2 (1698) and Caldara’s Suonate da camera, op. 2 (1699) survive in the present collection at Weston Park. Given that these two works survive in loose form and show no evidence of being extracted from a bound volume, it is likely that they were added to the collection after Catalogue 1 was created; they may have belonged to Richard Newport, 2nd Earl of Bradford and bequeathed to the Bridgeman family along with the Weston estates in 1762.
Catalogue 2: ‘List of the Music’ (c. 1784)
This catalogue was written by two separate hands on an assortment of single-folded quarto sheets. It categorizes each item by genre and specifies the composer, work, and page numbers referring to the relevant bound volumes and part-books containing the works. Manuscript additions, possibly in the same hand, were made later using different ink: some titles also had an ‘X’ in red ink added, indicating a later audit that revealed the works were no longer in the house. The most recent work in this catalogue is the ‘Overture to Dardanus’, which is presumably a keyboard arrangement of Sacchini’s setting, originally produced in Versailles and then in Paris in late 1784. The vagary of work details prevents an accurate identification of many of the pieces. Where multiple editions of a work were published, I have given the date of the earliest known print in the data set.
Catalogue 3: ‘A Catalogue of the music left at Weston, 1784’
This third, untitled catalogue comprises four sheets of paper folded into quarto-sized pages. The first page is headed with the description: A Catalogue of the music left at Weston / in Oct 1784 – looked over at that time by / Lady Bridgeman and F Hackwood – / and deposited with this account in ye passage closet / between Sr H Bridgeman’s Bed Chamber & powd’ring / room.
The catalogue was produced after Sir Henry’s eldest daughter, Charlotte, had married Henry Greswolde Lewis. Its presence indicates a significant change to the music collection, and the list of works reveals that she took much of her own music to her marital home. In the accompanying data set, I have given the likely work and publication where possible. Where multiple editions of a work were published, I have given the date of the earliest known print in the data set.
Catalogue 4: ‘1790 Catalogue of Music’
The last handwritten catalogue consists of single-folded loose quarto sheets. Each side of the page is used to list works categorized by genre and listed alphabetically by composer. This fourth catalogue contains fewer details about the musical works than the first three: no opus numbers or dates are given for the various collections of solos, sonatas, duos, and concertos. Much of the family music collection was bound together, as is implied by the reference to page numbers in Catalogue 2, but there were many items that were loose sheets (such as much material listed in Catalogue 3). This catalogue brings together the two formats by categorizing the music first by genre and then by their binding state. Some of the pages in this catalogue have annotations in light pencil by a different hand. Most of these are not discernible and it is unclear when they were added. Although the primary purpose of this catalogue was to serve as a finding aid, it is likely that the reason for creating it so soon after the previous one was due to Charlotte leaving Weston with her music for the second time, having separated from her husband and returned to Weston in the interim.Footnote 6
Auction Sale Catalogue, 1836
The first page is headed with the description ‘Catalogue of Vocal & Instrumental Music, Instruments, &c. Which will be Sold by Auction, by Mr. Watson, At the Mart, Bartholomew Lane, Bank, On Monday, June 13th, 1836, At Twelve o’Clock.’Footnote 7
Of the 190 entries in this sale catalogue only the first twenty-seven items appear to have been sold: manuscript additions in the left-hand margin indicate the price each lot had fetched (Figure 2). Although most of the items are single pieces of music, there are some groups of works, such as ‘lot 22: Music various, odd parts, &c. by Handel and 23 Geminiani’s Solos, Op. 4; Valentine, Ops 3 and 12; Orpheus Elianus, 4 parts and other pieces’, which were sold together for one shilling and sixpence. Whilst this description makes it impossible to identify all the works, their grouping together suggests that they were either manuscripts or bound together in part-books. Other lots of multiple work are easier to identify, such as Lot 26 ‘Dr, Arnold’s edition of the Works of Handel, Nos. 15 to 66, both inclusive’, which sold for a pound. However, conclusions such as these do not account for the occasional anomaly: Lot 159 lists ‘[Handel’s] Semele ditto [Arnold]’, which makes up nos. 24–28 in Arnold’s series. It is unlikely the family owned two copies and this is probably the same copy as implied in Lot 26.
Family Tree of the Bridgeman Family and the Earls of Bradford.
Auction Sale Catalogue, 1836.
Jeremiah Clark’s first two collections are both entitled ‘Eight Songs’: only one is described in the family catalogues and survives, yet only one is listed in the auction sale catalogue and this is marked as sold (Lot 16: Clark [Jer.], 8 Songs; Shield’s [Songs], Jackson’s Canzonets, and other pieces). The surviving copy (op. 2, 1775) shows signs of having once been bound, so it is possible that it was removed from the book which included the Shield Songs and Jackson Canzonets). The total sum of the twenty-seven sold lots was £4. A handwritten receipt kept with the sale catalogue confirms the transaction of this small fraction of the total 190 lots: ‘Mr Chappell most respectfully begs to inform the Countess of Bradford that the enclosed account is that of the auctioneer for the music submitted to Sale according to her Ladyship’s Directions’.
Francis Hackwood’s Bill, 1 March 1783Footnote 8
This bill primarily itemizes the musical services provided by the Bridgeman family music tutor, Francis Hackwood, over the course of a year ending in March 1783. These include teaching Sir Henry Bridgeman’s daughters, Charlotte and Elizabeth, selling music to the family, and various music-related activities such as tuning and replacing strings on the family’s harpsichord, and carriage of Hackwood’s trunk and his travel costs to and from Weston Park. This document is discussed in more depth later in relation to Charlotte’s musical activities.
Auction Sale Catalogue, 1978
This sale was instigated by Gerald Bridgeman, 6th Earl of Bradford. The catalogue description reads as follows:
[Lot] 181. SONG-BOOKS-COLLECTION OF 19 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SONG-BOOKS in one vol. (title of first item frayed, minor tears in a few leaves, outer margins occasionally cropped but hardly ever affecting the printed area), contemporary signature of John Bridgman inside front-cover and on two of the titles, contemporary reverse calf pamphlets, not subject to return (later label), folio, 1685–1700, sold as a collection of musical pamphlets, not subject to return.
If the dates of these ‘song-books’ are to be accepted, this sale contained some of the items listed in ‘A Catalogue of Musick’, 1713 (no. 1, earlier), whose contents included ‘Henry Pursills Vocall Musick – 2 Volums’ and ‘Bassinas Vocall and Instrumentall – 5 Volums’. It is likely that as recently as 1978, the collection contained Henry Purcell’s Orpheus Britannicus, vols 1 and 2 (London, 1698 and 1702), and Giovanni Battista Bassani’s Cantate et arie amorose, op. 31 (1703), among many others.
These seven documents help answer many questions arising from an examination of the surviving collection at Weston Park. Taken out of context, the present collection suggests a somewhat haphazard approach to collecting by various family members: most of the music is unbound, giving the impression of it being unimportant. Yet, it is clear from the two auction sale catalogues that only bound material was sold: a reflection on the desirability of old books as objects rather than their contents. From these snapshots we can see how music associated with specific family members was added to the collection, and how tastes for specific repertories changed, what was sold at auction, and what remains to this day.
Sir Henry Bridgeman, 5th Baronet, and Lady Elizabeth Bridgeman’s Music-Making
Sir Henry Bridgeman, 5th Baronet, and Lady Elizabeth were evidently great supporters of music. Sir Henry played the flute and sang, and was a member of the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club; Lady Elizabeth played the harpsichord and also sang.Footnote 9 Like most of the social elite of the time, they resided in the country over the winter and spent the warmer months in London during the season. They attended public concerts, theatrical productions, pleasure garden performances, and subscribed to a box at the Haymarket theatre for a number of years.Footnote 10 Soon after Sir Henry inherited the title and the Weston estate in 1764, he engaged the architect James Paine to undertake alterations to the house and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to redesign the parkland. The house and gardens at Weston Park were modernized by re-ordering the rooms, building a Roman bridge on the main approach, and constructing the Temple of Diana in the grounds. The temple was designed to be a multi-purpose garden building and features an orangery, a circular tea room and an octagonal music room. This room was never intended to be a formal performance space; the music room is a small room with no space for an ‘audience’.Footnote 11 However, there is no doubt that the room’s purpose was for music; in her pocketbook of 1787, Lady Elizabeth made a list of items to be moved from the house to the temple, noting ‘- my Harpsichord to be taken’.Footnote 12
This instrument could be the one depicted in the family portrait commissioned by Sir Henry from Robert Edge Pine in around 1782. This painting, which now hangs in Weston Park’s dining room, depicts all seven surviving members of Sir Henry’s immediate family and their music tutor in an Arcadian scene with numerous musical references. These include an organ and a bust of Handel in the background, revealing that music was a family passion.Footnote 13 In a house inventory of 1837, the painting was described as ‘A large Family Group, Pyne, Consisting of Sir Henry & Lady Bridgeman, their three sons Orlando, John, & George, two daughters, Charlotte, afterwards Mrs Greswold Lewis, & Elizabeth, afterwards Mrs Gunning, and Hackwood a musicmaster’.Footnote 14
The eye is drawn to the harpsichord in the centre foreground, which is being played by Sir Henry’s eldest daughter, Charlotte. One of her brothers is shown turning the page of Handel’s Let the Bright Seraphim, which rests on the harpsichord desk. To her right, her sister plays a harp, and a violin and sheet music are on a table behind her. Although some elements of this portrait are allegorical, the inclusion of the family music tutor, Francis Hackwood, in this impressive canvas suggests he played an important role in the family and that instances of the entire family performing together did occur.
There is much evidence that Sir Henry and his family attended specific musical performances. In a review of the Worcester Three Choirs Festival of 1770 ‘Sir Henry Bridgeman and Lady’ are listed among the numerous ‘persons of distinction’ in attendance.Footnote 15 The earliest comes from Lady Elizabeth Bridgeman’s diary of 1766–67, which reveals she had an active social life as a mother of six children under the age of nine at the time.Footnote 16 In a simple entry dated 4 May 1767, she writes that her husband left for a trip to Paris and that she later ‘Went to the opera’.Footnote 17 Her later journals show that, while in London, she continued to attend the Italian opera, subscription concerts, and pleasure garden performances, as well as private concerts at the houses of friends and acquaintances.Footnote 18 The following excerpts are all from May 1767.
I went after with Mrs Hatford[?] & Mrs Codrington to ye concert at D: of Y [Duke of York’s]Footnote 19
[…]
went to ye concert at night with Mrs Myddleton & after to RanelaghFootnote 20
[…]
in ye Evening went to Ranelagh with Lady M: Cornwallis Mrs Codrington & Miss StainforthFootnote 21
[…]
in ye Evening went to Lady Plimouths Concert very good Company.Footnote 22
[…]
Friday stay’d at home doing Business & Singing Catches till three o clockFootnote 23
Lady Elizabeth participated in family music-making, as evidenced from this last entry, but specifics are scarce. There are numerous references to music-making at home, at both Weston Park and the family’s London residence (St James’s Square) with the most common phrase being ‘music & cards as usual’.Footnote 24 She only provided details when recording unusual activities, such the entry for Thursday, 29 January 1778, which states she ‘playd thorough base’.Footnote 25 Playing the basso continuo part in chamber music was not common for a woman, whose usual musical role in amateur settings would be singing or playing solo keyboard works, or performing sonatas ‘with accompaniments’ for her male violin, flute, or cello partners.
In the 1770s, Lady Elizabeth was the driving force behind the construction of a theatre next to the house where the family hosted public performances. Manuscript play scripts, lists of plays performed, and miscellaneous poetry and prose in Lady Elizabeth’s hand document aspects of the family’s theatrical exploits. It is not known whether the theatre was part of the original concept of the architects Paine and Brown; it may have been a later development spurred by a general interest in private theatres during the 1770s.Footnote 26 The documents in the Bradford collection relating to the theatre are all in Elizabeth’s hand. One such document relates to the prologue and epilogue to Tandred and Sigismunda for the first play that was presented in the theatre. An additional epilogue to the same play is indicated as having been ‘spoken at the opening of the Theatre at Weston’.Footnote 27 This first theatrical production took place on 11, 13, and 15 September 1775. A detailed report of the event appeared the following week in the Derby Mercury:
We hear from Weston in Shropshire, the Seat of Sir Henry Bridgeman, that on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday last, were performed in an elegant little Theatre, lately erected in that Place at the sole Expence of Sir Henry, the Tragedy of Tancred and Sigismunda, with the Comic Opera of the Padlock; in both which Pieces the Characters were filled as follows: — Tancred, Mr. Bridgeman; Siffredi, Sir J. Wrottesley; Osmond, Capt. Pigott; Rodolpho, Mr. O. Bridgeman; Sigismunda, Hon. Miss L. Courtnay; Laura, Miss Pigott. — Don Diego, Sir Henry Bridgeman; Leander, Mr. O. Bridgeman; Mungo, Mr. J. Bridgeman; Leonora, Lady Wrottesley; Ursula, Miss Bridgeman.Footnote 28
The inclusion of many of the Bridgeman’s friends is significant here, showing a strong connection between nobility and gentry neighbours in a performance context.Footnote 29
Sir Henry and Lady Elizabeth attended many professional performances in addition to regular household music-making and the theatrical endeavours. In the thirteen surviving journals and pocket books belonging to the couple dating between the 1760s and the 1790s, there are numerous references to music.Footnote 30 Lady Elizabeth’s appointment diary of 1783 reveals the breadth of her social and cultural activities; the concerts and operas she attended are presented in Table 1.Footnote 31 Her children were grown up by this point; her eldest son, Henry Simpson Bridgeman, had died the previous year, and her two daughters, Charlotte and Elizabeth, were yet to marry.Footnote 32 On 17 February the family arrived in London from Weston Park, and attended operas and concerts over the next few months, with Lady Elizabeth listing them in her diary.
Lady Elizabeth Bridgeman’s attendance of performances, 1783
| 25 Feb | ‘Opera’ | Pasquale Anfossi’s Il Trionfo della costanza, at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket |
| 26 Feb | ‘Concert’ | Subscription concert at Hanover Square |
| 5 Mar | ‘Concert of L J Coch’s [?]’ | [no concert listed in London newspapers of this day, 4 or 6 March] |
| 24 Apr | ‘Opera’ | Pasquale Anfossi’s I Vecchi burlati, at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket |
| 26 Apr | ‘Opera’ | Ferdinando Gasparo Bertoni’s Il Convito, at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket |
| 30 Apr | ‘Concert’ | Subscription concert at Hanover Square |
Sir Henry’s cultural patronage was less frequent and varied. His pocket account book from late 1782 to early 1783 reveals that he attended the performances listed in Table 2.Footnote 33
Sir Henry Bridgeman’s expenses for attending performances, 1782
| Date | Event | Amount | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Sep | ‘Ball at Weymouth’ | £0.8.0 | |
| 30 Nov | ‘Opera’ | £0.10.6 | Either Ferdinando Gasparo Bertoni’s Medonte directed by Giardini at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, or Gay and Pepusch’s The Beggar’s Opera at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane |
| 2 Dec | ‘Play’ | £0.5.0 | Either Nathaniel Rowe’s The Fair Penitent, playing at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, or Congreve’s The Mourning Bride, playing at the New Theatre–Royal, Covent Garden |
| 10 Dec | ‘Opera’ | £0.10.6 | Ferdinando Gasparo Bertoni’s Il Convito at the King’s Theatre |
| 12 Dec | ‘Opera’ | £0.10.6 | Ferdinando Gasparo Bertoni’s Medonte directed by Giardini at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket |
The first entry is particularly intriguing, because it cannot be a coincidence that one of the items on the bill Francis Hackwood presented to Sir Henry in March 1783, for services 1782–83, is for ‘Expenses Weymouth to Weston £0:5:0’.Footnote 34 It is likely that Hackwood accompanied Sir Henry on his trip to Weymouth at the end of September and that one of the conditions of Hackwood’s thirteen-week employment to teach Charlotte and Elizabeth included being ‘released’ for professional performing engagements. Perhaps on this occasion, it was Hackwood accompanying his employer.
Charlotte Bridgeman
Charlotte was born in 1761, most likely at Castle Bromwich Hall, just before her father inherited Weston. The first evidence of her musical activities comes from Mattia Vento’s collection of Six sonates pour le clavecin, où piano-forte, op. 4, which was published in Paris in 1776 and dedicated to Charlotte.Footnote 35 This dedication alone indicates that the composer was patronized by the family and that he was Charlotte’s tutor.Footnote 36 Vento died in November of that year, leaving the Bridgemans without a music teacher for Charlotte. Francis Hackwood, another string player, filled the vacancy and would remain close to the family for at least fifteen years. Hackwood was a London violist and violinist who lived near Hanover Square.Footnote 37 Throughout the 1750s, 1760s, and 1770s he performed in the Foundling Hospital’s annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. Footnote 38 He became a member of the Royal Society of Musicians in 1761,Footnote 39 and performed as a ‘Tenor Principal’ in the Handel Commemoration concerts of 1784.Footnote 40
Given that Charlotte played the harpsichord and her sister Elizabeth the harp, it is noteworthy that Sir Henry chose a viola player as their music tutor rather than any one of the many organists in London. This reflects Hackwood’s dual role as teacher and chamber music companion: a string player would have been more useful than a keyboardist among the Bridgeman family, allowing them to play trio sonatas, keyboard sonatas ‘with accompaniments’ and larger-scale vocal and instrumental music. A surviving bill from 1782 provides further evidence for his active involvement in the Bridgeman’s family music-making and indicates he sourced printed music for the family.Footnote 41 The bill covers the period from early 1782 until March 1783 when Hackwood was engaged to teach Charlotte the harpsichord, piano, and singing, and Elizabeth the harp, and presumably also singing. From the beginning of 1782 until late June, Hackwood taught the daughters once a week on average at their home in St James’s Square. He provided printed music for the family and undertook tuning of the harpsichord. At some point between late June and October 1782, Hackwood was in ‘13 Weeks’ Attendance’ at Weston Park, charging £27.6.0 for this period of residency, which equates to just over two guineas a week. At the going rate of £0.5.3 per lesson, the average number of weekly lessons Charlotte and Elizabeth received was eight – a somewhat unrealistic number: a more plausible explanation for the high fee is that Hackwood’s duties involved making music with the family, performing alongside Sir Henry, Lady Elizabeth, and their friends in chamber music. Table 3 presents the music for which Hackwood billed Sir Henry.Footnote 42
Music sold to Sir Henry Bridgeman, 5th Bart, from Francis Hackwood, 1782–83
| Original listing | Price | Composer | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stamitz’s Sonatas | £0:10:6 | Carl Stamitz | Probably Six sonatas for the harpsichord or piano forte, with a violin accompanyment, the sixth for two harpsichords: humbly dedicated to the Rigt. Honble. Earl of Kelly, op. 15, 1778? |
| Accompanyments to Bach’s Concertos | £0:8:0 | J. C. Bach | |
| Staes Harpsichord Lessons | £0:5:0 | Ferdinand Staes | Three Favorite Sonatas for the Harpsichord or Piano–Forte. With an Accompanyment for a Violin, op. 4 |
| Nicollai’s D[itt]o | £0:10:6 | Nicollai | |
| Deitz’s Scotch Airs | £0:10:6 | Joseph Dietz | One of many books of Six divertimentos for the harpsichord or piano forte, c. 1779 |
| Carters Fair American | £0:10:6 | Thomas Carter | The Fair American, a Comic Opera [words by F. Pilon]. op. 10. London: Preston, 1782.a |
| Rauzini’s Airs | £0:10:6 | Rauzzini | Probably Six favorite Italian canzonets for the voice and harp, harpsichord or piano forte, op. 9, 1782. |
| Xallon’s Lessons | £1:10:6 | John Chalon | Six sonates pour le clavecin et le piano forte avec accompagnement de violon ad libitum, op. 5 |
| Staes Opera 5th | £1:6:6 | Staes | Three Sonatas for the Piano Forte or Harpsichord, with Accompanyments for a Violin and Violoncello, op. 5, 1780? |
| Boccerini’s Conversation Pieces | £0:6:0 | Boccherini | |
| Cannales Quartetts | £0:10:6 | Manuel Canales | Six Quartettos for Two Violins a Tenor & Bass, op. 3, 1782 |
| Pech’s Sonatas | £0:7:6 | Carl August Pesch | Six Sonates à deux Violons et Basse, op. 3, 1775 |
| Webb’s Songs | £0:3:0 | Samuel Webbe | unidentified |
| Shields Quartetts | £0:10:6 | William Shield | Six Quartettos, five for two Violins a Tenor & Violoncello and one for a Flute, Violin, Tenor and Violoncello, op.3, c. 1782 |
| D[itt]o Songs | £0:3:0 | William Shield | Unidentified |
| Noferi’s Sonatas | £0:10:6 | Giovanni Battista Noferi | Six Trios for two Violins and a Violoncello, op. 17, 1780? |
| Boccerini Opera 3d | £0:10:6 | Boccherini | 6 Sonatas for the harpischord of piano with an accompaniment for a violin or German flute, op. 3, c. 1780 |
| 3 Books Scotch Songs | £0:7:6 |
a First performed at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket on 11 May 1782.
Charlotte turned twenty-one during this period of intensive music tuition and by 1784 she had married Henry Greswolde Lewis of Malvern Hall near Solihull in Warwickshire.Footnote 43 Although no other bills from Hackwood survive, he maintained an association with the family; it is likely that he continued to teach Charlotte’s sister, Elizabeth, until her own marriage in 1794, and he may also have continued to teach Charlotte after her separation from Henry Greswolde Lewis in March 1785.Footnote 44 After Charlotte left Weston Park, Francis Hackwood assisted Lady Elizabeth in producing a catalogue of the house music collection (see Catalogue 3, earlier). This catalogue lists music that belonged to the third, fourth and fifth baronets which is recorded in the earlier catalogues, but is lacking much of the music associated with Charlotte such as the vocal pieces and accompanied sonatas listed on Hackwood’s bill.
The Weston Park collection contains a few works belonging to Charlotte dating from before her marriage. Manuscripts that bear her inscription include a set of parts with the keyboard score of five Italian arias by Vento (WP66) and a manuscript booklet containing four by Franchi and Piccini (WP46). Printed music in the collection includes numerous song sheets by Giordani, Corri, and Arne that were assembled into one of the few remaining bound volumes, which bears the inscription ‘Miss Bridgeman’.Footnote 45 It is likely that she brought all her music with her to Malvern Hall, which explains why much of this music is absent from the 1784 catalogue. The fact that the Vento arias were in separate parts rather than score format is significant here; it is possible that she had the means to perform these with instrumental accompaniment at Malvern Hall as she had at Weston Park with her family members. Her musical activities were not curtailed by her marriage: Charlotte’s surviving music manuscript book from Malvern Hall provides additional insight into her musical tastes and preferences. The music contained in the manuscript book has not been included in the accompanying spreadsheet; Table 4 presents the works written out in this manuscript book.Footnote 46
Music acquired by Charlotte Greswolde Lewis (née Bridgeman), 1784–85
| Work | Composer | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gavot | [D major, keyboard] | |
| Gigue | D major, keyboard, same hand as above | |
| Aria: ‘Infelice ah dove io vado’ | Tommaso Giordani | from Artaserse, 1772 |
| Small slip inserted between sheets one and two: Tuning Scale instructions for tuning keyboard | ||
| Andante | Keyboard, 2/4, A major | |
| [Continuo exercises] | ||
| La Bergere Des Alpes ‘Reux ce Sazon’ | ‘C G Lewis’ [French song, vocal plus bass line] | |
| Song in the 1st Act / Desert Island ‘What tho’ his guilt my heart hath torn’ | Arthur Murphy’s The Desert Island produced at Drury Lane 1759–60 [at the top of the page, the last line of the previous aria, ‘let me shun that thought.’ | |
| Larghetto [treble line, 6/8, G major] | Probably flute music. | |
| Andante […] Charlotte Greswold Lewis | French song, vocal and keyboard lines | |
| No. 5 […] Marcia Maestoso | ||
| Plaisir d’amour | Johann Paul Aegidius Martini | 6/8, F major, vocal and keyboard lines |
| Blank page, no staves. Start of a slightly smaller booklet consisting of paper cover (front and back with six duets for two flutes | ||
| Duetto 1 | ||
| Duetto 2 | ||
| Duetto 3 | ||
| Duetto 4 | ||
| Duetto 5 | ||
| Duetto 6 | ||
| ‘Larghetto […] Manuscript very old’ | Keyboard piece, A major | |
| [fragment of keyboard work] | Keyboard piece, G major | |
| ‘Andante […] Charlotte Geswolde Lewis’ | French song, vocal/keyboard short score | |
| ‘Qu’il est doux de dire’ | Grétry, André–Ernest–Modeste | From Lucile, 1769 |
| ‘Raison trop. sévère’ |
In recent years several studies have reassessed the importance of women as consumers and creators in the eighteenth century. The extensive source material connected with Charlotte’s music-making adds to the narrative and furthers our understanding of music’s place in lives of women in the eighteenth century. The numerous prints of accompanied sonatas Charlotte had access to (if not, purchased herself) help to corroborate the growing body of evidence that women played a significant role in amateur music-making, and that this activity did not stop after marriage.Footnote 47 The evident skill of Charlotte and the existence of challenging keyboard repertoire in the collection gives weight to the idea that a woman could enact authority through music by playing the lead role among her male accompanists.Footnote 48 Whether this reflected her status as the controlling manager of the home after marriage, or in some way made up for the lack of power and influence than she found in society remains a relevant question.
Henry Simpson Bridgeman
Charlotte’s older brother and heir apparent was Henry Simpson Bridgeman. He was just twenty-five years old when he died in an accident in 1782. Cello music in the Weston Park collection is abundant and survives in print and manuscript forms. The thirty-one manuscript cello works are either duets for two cellos or solos for cello and basso continuo, with one set of arpeggio exercises for unaccompanied cello (WP1-31).Footnote 49 Some works are composed of three or four movements that are presented in a folded foolscap booklet, while others are single movements written on single sheets of manuscript paper. Five distinct hands are represented; the majority appear to belong to professional copyists, though only two pieces are identified as such. The last page of James Cervetto’s Solo and Rondeau (WP22 and WP23), which are presented in the same booklet, includes an Inscription: ‘Wrote by James Duckworth – No 5 Catherine Street Strand’ (Duckworth was active between 1777 and 1790).Footnote 50 Many of the manuscripts are in the same hand (WP1–7, 10–11, 18–19, 24–28, and 30); the two minuets WP8 and WP9 are in another hand, while the two sonatinas (WP20 and WP21) are almost certainly the work of two additional professional copyists.
Most of the pieces are unascribed; the pieces that do bear composers’ names are the solo by Felice Giardini (WP6), the two sonatinas Solo and Rondeau by James Cervetto (WP22 and WP23), and the Duet by Carlo Ferrari (WP30). Only two pieces bear Henry Simpson Bridgeman’s name: on the front cover of Hyland Laddie with Variations on the Violoncello (WP24) is the autograph inscription ‘Hen. Simpson Bridgeman Paris March 18 1779’. This inscription is also found on some other manuscripts in the Weston Park collection, including an incomplete set of parts for Sinfonia a grande orchestra by Domenico Corri (WP36) and three string quartets by Gaetano Pugnani (WP61–63). The other cello manuscript bearing Henry’s name is James Cervetto’s Sonatina in C (WP20), on the front cover of which is written ‘For Mr. Bridgeman’, suggesting that the manuscript is the composer’s autograph. Cervetto lived at No. 34 Haymarket at the time – just a stone’s throw from the Bridgeman London residence in St James’s Square – so he could have been Henry’s cello tutor, as he was for many other aristocratic amateur cellists.Footnote 51 Only one of the cello pieces in the collection has a concordance with a printed source: James Cervetto’s Sonatina in D (WP21) is contained in Twelve Sonatinas for a Violoncello and a Bass, op. 4, published in 1781.
Given that Henry Simpson Bridgeman died in 1782, the manuscripts can be dated with some certainty between the late 1770s and 1782, although dates of composition may well have been earlier. Given the Bridgeman family’s frequent visits to France, it is possible that the manuscripts were acquired in Paris, where Henry Simpson may have seen virtuoso cellists perform at the celebrated Concerts Spirituel or at private concerts.Footnote 52 Among the performers active in Paris at the time were Jean-Baptiste Bréval and Louis-Auguste Janson, whose works share similarities with the Weston Park pieces.
Henry Simpson Bridgeman’s manuscript cello music is complemented by printed cello music by Bononcini, Bréval, Giacobbe and James Cervetto, Chiabrano, Giovanni Battista Cirri, Willem de Fesch, Salvatore Lanzetti, and Peter Pasqualino. Some of these works date from before the instrument surged in popularity after it was taken up by the young Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales (later George II) in 1732. These include Six solos for two violoncellos, composed by Sigr Bononcini and other eminent authors published in London by John Simpson in 1748, Willem de Fesch’s VI Sonatas, for a Violoncello Solo, with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord, op. 13 (c. 1740), and Lanzetti’s Six Solos for two Violoncellos or a German Flute and a Bass, Dedicated to his Royal Highness Frederick Prince of Wales, op. 2 (1745?). These may have belonged to an older relative of Henry Simpson Bridgeman’s, but equally, he may have acquired the works himself. The later set of cello works date from the 1780s when interest peaked again. George, Prince of Wales (later George IV), took up the instrument and is known to have ‘accompanied the piano on the violoncello with taste and precision’ at the ‘quartet parties’ of his mother, Queen Charlotte.Footnote 53 Of the two printed works in the collection bearing Henry’s name, one points to him being in Paris again in 1781: Jean-Baptiste Bréval’s Six Duos a deux violoncelles, op. 2, is inscribed ‘H S Simpson 1781’.Footnote 54 The other, Gaspare Giuseppe Chiabrano’s Sei sonate a Violoncello solo O sia Fagotto e Basso, was published in Paris c. 1780 with Henry Simpson dating his copy 1781.
Of particular interest in the collection are the cello arrangements of vocal pieces, which are found in a folded foolscap booklet alongside three dances (nos. 12–17). Thomas Arne’s Artaxerses, premiered in February 1762, continued to be revived well into the nineteenth century. ‘If e’er the cruel tyrant love’, sung by the character Mandane, was performed by Charlotte Brent in this and subsequent performances. This arrangement (WP14) presents only the vocal part (without the opening ritornello) but includes all the song text; perhaps an indication that it was to be used by Henry Simpson and/or his sisters or mother. The English entertainment Galligantus was first performed at the Haymarket Theatre on 5 February 1759, and a few times towards the end of that year.Footnote 55 This arrangement (WP15) appears to be another transcription, with text under the solo cello part. ‘Mrs. Vernon’s Hornpipe in the Beggar’s Opera’ (WP16) was not in the original 1728 production of Gay’s popular ballad opera and seems to have been introduced at the time of Thomas Arne’s revival of 1759. The tune appears in Thompson’s compleat collection of 120 favourite hornpipes as performed at the public theatres, published c. 1775, entitled simply ‘Mrs. Vernon’s Hornpipe’. The manuscript arrangement of Domingo Terradellas’s ‘Non sò se sdegno amore’ (WP12) is the most interesting of these vocal transcriptions. The aria, taken from the opera Mitridate, was performed at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket in 1746, sung by Giulia Frasi, and appeared in print the following year in The Favourite Songs in the Opera call’d Mitridate. The Weston Park arrangement is in effect a transcription of the instrumental accompaniment, reducing much of the material originally presented by the two violins as double-stopped thirds for the cello, and without the main vocal melody. The absence of the vocal line suggests the arrangement designed as an accompaniment to a voice. The first line of the text is presented under the music in the appropriate place, but as the cello line does not present the vocal melody at this point, it is probably a cue for a singer.
The presence of printed cello music owned by Henry Simpson Bridgeman suggests that he was a keen musician, and the manuscript sonatas show how skilled a performer Henry Simpson must have been. The rare examples of vocal music transcribed for cello shed more light on domestic music-making among the gentry and nobility. The arrangements represent both Italian and English opera, which was typically performed by women in domestic contexts. However, the implication of the arrangement of Terradellas’s ‘Non sò se sdegno amore’, which apportions the instrumental material to the solo cello, points towards a music-making scenario where Henry Simpson’s high standard of playing could be accommodated. If he was able to play this technically demanding work, he would surely not have been satisfied with the many accompanied sonatas which are to be found in the collection. These arrangements, which would have required effort in acquiring or producing himself, show how integral music was to the social life of this generation of the Bridgeman family.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at http://doi.org/10.1017/rrc.2024.4. The complexity created by the several records relating to the music collection at Weston Park is considerable. The handwritten catalogues span eighty years and several generations, and help document when music was acquired, removed, and returned. These records vary from the first simple list of a modest collection of works to more comprehensive catalogues designed to aid the finding of a much wider variety of genres and printed formats. Sale catalogues help explain why so much of the music is not present in the collection today and help clarify identification of specific works. To present this information statically, in one long table, would be of limited use to those wanting to investigate trends in music collecting or music and gender. Therefore, the information is presented as a spreadsheet in. xls format. The catalogue presents every musical work that survives at Weston Park today as well as those works presumed to have been in the collection due to their presence in the handwritten catalogues and sale catalogues. The initial number in column A is the catalogue number of the surviving collection, collated by the author. Where possible, the work and publication details are given in columns C to E, having used a combination of British Library Catalogue of Printed Music, RISM, and the existing music collection at Weston Park. In catalogues made by the family, information is often lacking, with works described in abbreviation; for example, under a column of Sonatas, ‘Vento’s for Harpsichord & Violin’. In this example it has not been possible to identify exactly which set of Vento’s accompanied harpsichord sonatas is being referred to, using a process of elimination, cross-referencing dates and further references to similar repertoire made elsewhere on the handwritten catalogue. Where an item is not found in the current collection, I have presented the source reference in Column K, ‘Notes’.
Readers may filter columns to show the items listed on any one or more of the catalogues. A key to the abbreviations used, notes on each item, sources, and other information is presented in the Key sheet.
Open access
