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Editor Mark Argent also provides the introduction to the diaries of composer and organist R.J.S. Stevens (1757-1837), a musician who reports the warp and fabric of his society from the late Baroque through the early Romantic periods. The Stevens papers also provide a fund of information about the singing of glees in London. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Like the works already published, these latest volumes of the Biographical Dictionary deal with theatre people of every ilk, ranging from dressers and one-performance actors to trumpeter John Shore (inventor of the tuning fork) and the incomparable Sarah Siddons. Also prominent is Susanna Rowson, a novelist, actress, and early female playwright. Although born into a British military family, Rowson often wrote plays that dealt with patriotic American themes and spent much of her career on the American stage. The theatrical jewel of these volumes is the "divine Sarah" Siddons: "She raised the tragedy to the skies," wrote William Hazlitt, and "embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and dignified mortals of elder time." She endured much tragedy herself, including a crippling debilitating illness and the deaths of five of her seven children. Siddons played major roles in both comedy and tragedy, not the least of which was a performance as Hamlet.
During the late eighteenth century, a musical–cultural phenomenon swept the globe. The English square piano—invented in the early 1760s by an entrepreneurial German guitar maker in London—not only became an indispensable part of social life, but also inspired the creation of an expressive and scintillating repertoire. Square pianos reinforced music as life’s counterpoint, and were played by royalty, by musicians of the highest calibre and by aspiring amateurs alike. On Sunday, 13 May 1787, a square piano departed from Portsmouth on board the Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet, bound for Botany Bay. Who made the First Fleet piano, and when was it made? Who owned it? Who played it...
Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.
Vols. for 1837-52 include the Companion to the Almanac, or Year-book of general information.
Mr King describes the interests and activities of nearly two hundred music-collectors from the period of c.1600 to 1960.
Originally published in 1933, this book presents a historical study of ophthalmology in Britain from its earliest phases during the Roman period up until the end of the eighteenth century. Numerous illustrative figures, detailed textual notes and an appendix section are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in ophthalmology and its history.