On an early summer’s day in 1775, somewhere near Hammersmith, West London, highwaymen attacked a stagecoach and relieved the passengers inside of valuables. We know the details because (through the efforts of a privately hired ‘thief-taker’) the highwaymen were tracked down, tried and hanged. But it’s the passengers whose names stand out. Among them were three friends: the painter Thomas Gainsborough, and composers Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel. That this snapshot of history caught them travelling together was no accident, because they were often together – joined by a shared love of music that with Bach and Abel was professional but, in the case of Gainsborough, a deep-rooted amateur obsession.
One of the great portrait painters of the 18th century, Gainsborough nonetheless complained of being ‘sick of Portraits’, wishing ‘very much to take up my Viol da Gamba and walk off to some sweet Village where I can … enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease’. Had that happened, it wouldn’t just have been a single viola da gamba that he took with him to rural obscurity. He owned at least five. He called them ‘my comfort’. And over time, the comfort embraced a theorbo, violin and harp, growing to the dimensions of a small orchestra.
As another friend put it, there were occasions ‘when music seemed to be his employment and painting his diversion’. It’s only fitting, then, that this key ingredient in Gainsborough’s life gets due notice.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Music Magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Music Magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
FESTIVAL GUIDE 2024
It's that time of year again... Spring has finally sprung, and along with the promised sunshine we welcome a brand-new season of glorious summer music.
The mighty Sampson
As soprano Carolyn Sampson turns 50, she tells Ashutosh Khandekar about the development of her voice through a remarkable catalogue of recordings
Music to die for
From wrathful Verdi to ethereal Fauré, there are many different ways to compose a Requiem, as Jeremy Pound discovers
Avian anthems
From Vivaldi to Messiaen, composers have often been inspired by birdsong. But accurately mimicking chirrups and tweets in music is far more difficult than it sounds, finds Tom Stewart
THE BIG 400!
BBC Music Magazine has reached its 400th issue! To celebrate, we look back over eight milestone issues since the very firstin 1992
Northern light
From her first piano lesson, composer Errollyn Wallen has lived and breathed music; and though inspired by a range of styles, her composing is a deeply personal expression, as she tells Kate Wakeling
Felix Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor
Jo Talbot celebrates the Mozart of the 19th century’ as she searches out the finest recordings of this masterful work for piano, violin and cello
Antonio Salieri
Forget the hate-filled murderer of Mozart, says Alexandra Wilson; the real Salieri was an opera composer of considerable standing
Aix-en-Provence France
Rebecca Franks breathes in the spring air in the popular southern city, where the music making sparkles and the sun always shines
Composing is like breathing. It's just something I do, like a hobby, really...or an addiction
The world's most performed classical composer, a small, black-suited figure with a mop of white hair and mutton-chop whiskers, stands on the huge Brucknerhaus stage, almost invisible among the sea of musicians.
