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= Musical Bath during the Georgian Era =

A Fashionable City
The musical history of Bath starts just a decade before the beginning of the Georgian Era. It went parallel to the development of the provincial spa town. As Master of ceremonies Beau Nash played a paramount role in establishing Bath as a fashionable city, a resort where informal manners were de rigueur, allowing nobility and wealthy middle-class to mingle together. Early in the development of the “new” Bath, Nash promoted a subscription for a band of five or six musicians paid a guinea a week. They first played in gardens but soon entertained patrons in the Pump Room itself. The band grew to seven players who performed in the Pump Room in the mornings and in the Assembly Rooms for the  evening balls for two guineas a week.

Bath soon became a “centre of fashion, attracting visitors to its spa and social diversions”.

When the Georgian Era was drawing to a close, other resorts such a Brighton had grown very fashionable and Bath’s pre-eminence was already declining, however as a spa it continued to attract international luminaries, and musicians to entertain them.

Musical Entertainment Venues
The Pump Rooms: musical entertainment took place in the mornings, for instance as “breakfast concerts”.

Concerts and evening balls took place in the Assembly Rooms.

 The Simpson's Rooms on the Terrace Walks. These were the earliest Assembly Rooms in Bath, they were destroyed by a fire during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

 The Wiltshire's Rooms (or “New Assembly Rooms”) on the opposite side of the Terrace Walks. They were opened in 1728. (they later became the Bath Literary and Scientific Institution).

 The Upper Rooms (i.e. today’s Assembly Rooms) in Bennett Street were purpose built in 1771 and eventually replaced the first two other buildings.

The Assembly was an 18th century form of entertainment: a mingling of people gathering and socialising through conversation, news, games, public readings, balls, concerts and other social functions.

Thomas Shaw
Thomas Linley

Thomas Linley the Younger

http://rslade.co.uk/18th-century-music/composers/thomas-linley-the-younger/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOqHO1jaW2E

James Brooks

George Frideric Handel

 William Croft (1678-1727)

Croft came to Bath in 1727 but rather than musical purposes it seems he would have made the journey  for his health that had recently deteriorated. Like many he would have come to take the waters in the hope of getting better. However he died in Bath on 14 August 1727 at the age of 48.

http://rslade.co.uk/18th-century-music/composers/william-croft/

 Handel?

shortly before Handel died it was announced that he intended to visit Bath for his health, though in fact he was unable to do so.

 Thomas Chilcot

The earliest musician of note to work in Bath was Thomas Chilcot, a competent composer and organist of Bath Abbey from 1728; he also organized concerts and introduced the music of Handel to Bath audiences, and he is the reputed teacher of Thomas Linley senior

http://rslade.co.uk/18th-century-music/composers/thomas-chilcot/

 James Brooks

 Thomas Linley

Linley was the leading professional musician of his day in Bath and responsible for the regular series of subscription concerts until he undertook the London oratorios from 1774. All his six children were born in Bath,

 Thomas Linley Junior, his sister and brother

Thomas Linley junior, who as a boy enjoyed the friendship of Mozart

 Elizabeth Ann Linley

Elizabeth Ann,the sister of Thonmas jr, was a famous singer who married Sheridan

 William Herschel

was organist of the Octagon Chapel from 1766 to 1782, a time when his astronomical pursuits were beginning to dominate his interests in music.

 Benjamin Milgrove

from at least the 1760s until his death in 1810, was precentor of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, for which he published 16 hymns in 1769; he was also at one time a member of the Pump Room band

 Henry Harington

A knowledgeable amateur of music who settled in Bath in the 18th century. a physician by profession who also enjoyed a reputation as a glee composer. He was associated with the beginnings of the Bath Catch Club and the Harmonic Society of Bath

 Thomas Shaw

 John Christopher Smith

J.C. Smith, who was the son of Handel's amanuensis and who eventually inherited the greater part of Handel's manuscripts, lived in retirement there from 1774 until his death.

 Samuel Wesley

 Rauzzini

The famous male soprano Venanzio Rauzzini settled in Bath in about 1777

Rauzzini took over  the management the subscription concerts sole responsibility in 1780

W.T. Parke in his Musical Memoirs stated that at these concerts he brought forward ‘a succession of singers of the first eminence, at a subscription amounting to no more than about two shillings and ninepence per night, being less than a third of those at the concerts in London’. Parke implied that Rauzzini lost money by this, but was defeated by opposition when he sought to increase the subscription.

death in 1810

 Franz Lamotte

Violinist, joined rauzzini to manage subscription concerts

managing the subscription concerts, which Lamotte appears to have continued in succession to Linley.

 Haydn

Haydn, on his visit to Bath in 1794, stayed with Rauzzini, in celebration of whose dog ‘Turk’ he wrote a round.

 Michael Kelly

in his Reminiscences described musical evenings in Bath at Rauzzini's private residence.

 Catalani

In 1807 Rauzzini engaged the soprano Catalani, who was a favourite in the city during the next 20 years.

 Andrew Ashe

Following Rauzzini's death in 1810 the flautist Andrew Ashe (d 1838) continued the subscription concerts.

19th century and beyond

Sir George Smart administered and conducted the subscription concerts from 1822 to 1827.

Andrew Loder, probably the uncle of John David Loder, published music from 4 Orange Grove, Bath, between about 1820 and 1826

John David Loder, writer of the well-known violin tutor, General and Comprehensive Instruction Book for the Violin (1814), was for a time (c1820–35) in business as a music publisher in Milsom Street, Bath.

between 1827–65 many concerts of music from Italian operas given by leading singers of days, including Malibran, Viardot-Garcia, Mario, Grisi, Pasta, Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini and Donzelli

Paganini played three times in 1831–2

Liszt played three times in Bath in September 1840

Jullien directed many concerts in the city between 1845 and 1859.

Jenny Lind gave four acclaimed recitals between 1847 and 1862

the violinist Joachim, the cellist Piatti and Bottesini, the double-bass virtuoso, performed frequently in Bath during the last half of the century.

Clara Schumann made six appearances between 1867 and 1873

Charles Hallé gave frequent piano recitals between 1855 and 1894

Hans von Bülow gave four piano recitals in the period 1874–80

during the last quarter of the century also the pianists Anton Rubinstein, Paderewski, Rosenthal, D'Albert and Dohnányi.

The ‘Pump Room’ orchestra was disbanded in 1939.