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Caught in the Act Young Thomas Arne goes to extreme lengths to conceal his musical talent from his family.

In two parts

before 1732
King George I 1714-1727 to King George II 1727-1760
Music: Thomas Arne

© ruth and johnny, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0. Source

About this picture …

A spinet by Thomas Hitchcock & Sons, prolific makers of spinets for over a century, from about 1660 onwards. This one stands in Haddon hall in Derbyshire. Thomas Arne would not simply be practising scales and memorising music: he would also study harmony and improvisation, learning how to accompany singers and chamber music groups at sight. The most essential skill was reading ‘figured bass’, which provides one line of notes only, the lowest ones, and expects the rest to be invented on the spot with the help of a few numbers.

Caught in the Act

Part 1 of 2

Thomas Arne (1710-1778) remains one of England’s greatest composers, though overshadowed now by his contemporary George Frideric Handel. He wrote the music for the National Anthem and ‘Rule Britannia!’ and composed dozens of popular songs and operas, but if his father had had his way, Thomas would have been a bored London attorney.
Abridged

HIS love for Music operated upon him too powerfully, even while he was at Eton, for his own peace or that of his companions; for with a miserable cracked common-flute, he used to torment them night and day. When he left Eton he used to avail himself of the privilege of a servant, by borrowing a livery and going into the upper gallery of the opera, which was then appropriated to domestics.

At home he had contrived to secrete a spinet in his room, upon which, after muffling the strings with a handkerchief, he used to practise in the night while the rest of the family were asleep;* for had his father discovered how he spent his time, he would, probably, have thrown the instrument out of the window, if not the player.

This young votary of Apollo was at length obliged to serve a three years’ clerkship to the law;* but he contrived during his clerkship to acquire some instructions on the violin.

Jump to Part 2

A spinet is properly speaking a small harpsichord of broadly triangular shape. The design was intended to make it cheaper, quieter, and better suited to domestic spaces. In a harpsichord, the strings stretch directly away from the player; in a virginals, they run left-to-right; in a spinet, they run left-to-right and also away at an angle of about 30°, hence the triangular shape and the name ‘bentside spinet’.

According to Greek mythology, Apollo was the musician among the gods, famous for his lyre. Apollo taught Orpheus to play so beautifully that he charmed his way through the Underworld. See Orpheus and Eurydice.

Précis

Composer Thomas Arne was destined by his father for a career in the law, but as a young boy Thomas taught himself music secretly, disguising himself as a servant to gain access to the Italian opera house in Covent Garden, learning the keyboard with a spinet smuggled into his bedroom, and studying the violin alongside his legal training. (58 / 60 words)

Part Two

© ruth and johnny, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0. Source

About this picture …

Susannah Maria Cibber, née Arne, painted by Thomas Hudson in 1749. Thomas Arne taught his sister to sing, and her father-in-law Colley Cibber taught her to act. She became David Garrick’s leading lady at Drury Lane (the pair being the highest-paid actors in the country), and appeared as a soloist at the Dublin premiere of Handel’s “Messiah”, singing the contralto part. “By a natural pathos,” said Burney, who was Thomas’s pupil and had heard Susannah many times, “and perfect conception of the words, she often penetrated the heart, when others, with infinitely greater voice and skill, could only reach the ear.”

SOON after he had quitted his legal master, his father accidentally calling at a gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood, upon business,* found him engaged with company; but sending in his name, he was invited up stairs, where there was a large company and a concert, in which, to his great astonishment, he caught his son in the very act of playing the first fiddle!*

No sooner was the young musician able to practise aloud in his father’s house, than he bewitched the whole family. In discovering that his sister had a very sweet-toned and touching voice,* he gave her such instructions as soon enabled her to sing for Lampe, in his opera of Amelia.*

And finding her so well received in that performance, he soon prepared a new character for her, by setting Addison’s opera of Rosamond, in which he employed his younger brother likewise in the character of the Page.* This musical drama was first performed March 7th, 1733, at Lincoln's-Inn Fields, ten nights successively, and with great applause.

Copy Book

Thomas Arne Sr was an upholsterer and innkeeper by trade, a very well-to-do merchant able to give his son the very best education. When some Canadian Mohawk princes visited London in 1709, in between audiences with Queen Anne and experiencing all that eighteenth century London had to offer they lodged with Mr Arne at his inn, The Crown and Cushion, in King Street, Covent Garden. See ‘Four Indian Kings In London’ at ‘American Heritage’.

Probably one of the soirées organised by Michael Festing (1705-1752), Thomas’s senior by less than five years, who had been a pupil of Richard Jones and Francesco Geminiani. Festing took Arne to musical events all over London, and taught him the violin. He later became a founder-member of the Academy of Ancient Music.

Susannah Arne subsequently became Mrs Theophilus Cibber, and was better known as Mrs Cibber in her own day. She was a soloist at the premiere of Handel’s “Messiah” in Dublin. See The Story of ‘Messiah’.

John Frederick Lampe (1703-1751) emigrated to Britain from Saxony in 1724, making a living as a bassoonist in London. He was a friend of Charles Wesley, and has left us several hymn-tunes. ‘Amelia’ was produced in 1732.

Richard Arne, who appeared with Susannah and Thomas in many of Thomas’s earlier works.

Précis

Thomas’s gift for music was finally uncovered when his father stumbled across his boy playing the violin for a chamber concert in a neighbour’s house. Once the secret was out, young Thomas was given licence to follow his passion, and a successful career followed, helped by his sister Susannah, whom Thomas had taught to sing. (55 / 60 words)

Source

Abridged from ‘A general history of music, from the earliest ages to the present period (1789)’, by Charles Burney (1726-1814).

Related Video

Arne’s Keyboard Sonata No. 8 in G major is the last of a set of ‘sonatas or lessons’ for the harpsichord, published in 1756. It begins with a tuneful Minuet, not by Arne himself, which is followed by four Variations of increasing (but never extreme) difficulty, in which the left hand often crosses over the right. Arne uses the sonata to demonstrate figured bass, ornaments and improvisation. It is played here by Ewald Demeyere.
A grand solo from the opera ‘Rosamond’, the opera which twenty-three-year-old Thomas Arne composed specially for his sister Susannah and brother Richard, based on a text by Joseph Addison. It is performed here by Emma Kirkby.
1 2

Suggested Music

1 2

Keyboard Sonata No. 8 in G Major

Thomas Arne (1710-1778)

Performed by Ewald Demeyere.

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Trio Sonata No. 2 in G Major

Thomas Arne (1710-1778)

Performed by Collegium Musicum 90.

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How To Use This Passage

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IRead it aloud, twice or more. IISummarise it in one sentence of up to 30 words. IIISummarise it in one paragraph of 40-80 words. IVMake notes on the passage, and reconstruct the original from them later on. VJot down any unfamiliar words, and make your own sentences with them later. VIMake a note of any words that surprise or impress you, and ask yourself what meaning they add to the words you would have expected to see. VIITurn any old-fashioned English into modern English. VIIITurn prose into verse, and verse into prose. IXAsk yourself what the author is trying to get you to feel or think. XHow would an artist or a photographer capture the scene? XIHow would a movie director shoot it, or a composer write incidental music for it?

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