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The Dublin Musical Scene 1749–50 and its Background
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1978
Extract
The musical season in Dublin which occurred at the exact mid-point of the eighteenth century was initiated on Monday, 11 September with an open-air performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks at Marlborough Bowling Green. Unlike on the occasion of the first performance five months previously in London, there is no evidence that the gentlemen (who paid one shilling entrance) and their consorts (admitted free) were disappointed by a failure of the ‘Grand Fire-work between the Acts’. Two days later, on Wednesday, 13 September, a second performance was arranged by Dr Mosse in the New Gardens in Great Britain Street as a benefit for the first-ever Lying-in Hospital, which he had opened in 1745. There were two further performances of Mr Handel's popular entertainment before the onset of autumn brought an end to the summer series of open-air concerts; and on Friday, 22 September, the winter season began with a performance of The Beggar's Opera at the Theatre in Smock Alley, where Thomas Sheridan had assembled ‘the best Band of Instrumental Performers ever heard in this Kingdom’. In spite of criticism that Sheridan had ‘struck woeful bargains [with] the Musical Tribe’, the Smock Alley Theatre was entering the second season that featured 22 instrumentalists, 6 principal singers, and two distinguished leaders in the persons of Signor Pasquali and Mr Lampe. Meanwhile, Mr Dubourg, Master of the King's Music in Ireland, and Miss Oldmixon, the popular oratorio soprano were ‘waiting for the first fair wind’ to come to Dublin; and it was rumoured that ‘Mr Handel is coming over to entertain the town this season’. The 1749–50 season, so auspiciously inaugurated, has been chosen for special attention because it was particularly rich and varied, is comparatively well documented, and it represents the culmination of the first phase of development under the more settled conditions after the Williamite war before the changes which led to the Act of Union in 1800 began to have a significant impact on the social life of the community. Before focusing attention on this particular season, a more general description of the musical background in eighteenth-century Dublin will help to place it in perspective.
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- Copyright © 1980 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors
References
NOTES
1 Faulkner's Dublin Journal (hereafter FDJ), 25 September 1749.Google Scholar
2 FDJ, 9–12 September 1749. With the proceeds from such concerts Dr Mosse began the building of the Rotunda Hospital on this site in 1751.Google Scholar
3 FDJ, 16–19 September 1749. See also Esther K. Sheldon, Thomas Sheridan of Smock-Alley (Princeton, 1967).Google Scholar
4 FDJ, 29 November-3 December 1748.Google Scholar
5 Sheldon, op. cit., 130. Niccolo Pasquali (d. Edinburgh 1757), In Dublin 1748–52; Johann Friedrich Lampe (c. 1703–1751) married Isabella Young, sister of Mrs Cecilia (T. A.) Arne, who was one of the singers engaged by Sheridan at Smock Alley.Google Scholar
6 FDJ, 16–19 September 1749. Miss Oldmixon sang in Dublin during four consecutive seasons from 1746. In 1754 she married Gian Battista Marella, who arrived in Dublin in October 1750.Google Scholar
7 E.g. Elin a Roon with All Its Variations (William Neale, Dublin, January 1743), and Ellen-a-roon with Variations by Mr Dubourg (William Manwaring, Dublin, December 1746).Google Scholar
8 See FDJ, 1–4 August 1741; 26–30 April 1743; 23–26 February 1745; 10–13 March 1750.Google Scholar
9 E.g. Minutes of the Board of Mercer's Hospital for a and 9 February 1744, and 24 January 1747.Google Scholar
10 The Dublin News Letter, 27 November 1742.Google Scholar
11 FDJ, 15 March 1742.Google Scholar
12 The complete programme with this announcement given in FDJ, 27 April-1 May 1742 and 1–4 May 1742.Google Scholar
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15 FDJ, 12–16 September 1749. The Great Room in Fishamble Street was built by the Charitable Musical Society in 1741, and was the venue for Handel's concerts, including the first performance of Messiah.Google Scholar
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17 FDJ, 28 November-2 December 1749. J. C. Hoffmaster was a London maker of the time.Google Scholar
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33 FDJ, 17–20 March 1750.Google Scholar