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When we entered The Black Swan, we interrupted a Methodist Class Meeting led by  Benjamin Gregory, a charismatic character, very popular among the poor in the area. Isaac’s wife Esther liked him, and it was she who had arranged for this little Class Meeting to be held in their pub. I was intrigued by what… Read more

While Samuel Wesley and I were caught up in this ecstatic musical crucifixion, I was aware of a young tall bearded man standing at the back of the communal room, who was clearly absorbed in our playing.  However, his body language was a mixture of enraptured admiration and intense anger focussed on the disturbed man… Read more

In the summer of 1827, back in England, Sir George took me to Norwich to take part in the fashionable Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Festival. He had been engaged to lead and conduct a performance of G F Handel’s oratorio ‘Jeptha’ in the St Peter Mancroft Church. After the final rehearsal, we went to visit… Read more

My new association with Sir George Smart, and his playing of me, profoundly resonated with the pervasive and new ‘Romantic’ way of thinking sweeping across Europe in the wake of Napoleon’s demise. I felt caught up in something momentous, of huge significance for all of Western culture and thought. An extraordinary event This affected me… Read more

I was played very little during the next few years – left in my velvet-lined case and feeling distinctly redundant!  Lady Priscilla was heavily engaged in social parties, gala dances, soirees and the like, and when the Vienna Congress was finally over in 1815, we moved to Florence, Italy where Lord Burghersh was now a… Read more

I was profoundly affected by the sight and the sounds of the deaf composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, struggling through that evening at the grand Congress concert in the Hofburg in November 1814; unable to hear his creations, ‘giving in’ to Michael Umlauf while fumbling through the pages of his manuscripts.  I had an inkling, a… Read more

Enter Ludwig van Beethoven, the monumental musician of the age.  My remarkable encounter with him came about after Lord & Lady Burghersch had travelled from Berlin to the Congress of Vienna, which lasted from November 1814 until June 1815.  This extraordinary gathering was convened after the downfall of Napoleon, with the aim of providing a… Read more

Late in 1813, Lord Burghersh was appointed Commissioner (‘Military Attache’) to the headquarters of the Austrian Army in Berlin, where the ‘allied sovereigns’ (the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia) were in the field against Napoleon and his army, then retreating from Russia. (Lord Burghersh) Thinking it might soften the pill… Read more

My Journey begins, along with some questions Johann Peter Salomon My relationship with Lady Priscilla began reasonably well, especially when she took me off to lessons with her teacher, my friend Johann Peter Salomon.  Sometimes, even though there were wars and rumours of wars with Napoleon Bonaparte across Europe, Johann Salomon asked Lady Priscilla if… Read more

I was born on 8 August 1810 in Thomas Kennedy’s workshop at 16 Princes Street, Westminster, London – or so I believe.  It took only a couple of months for my skilled luthier to bring me to this birthing moment when my voice was finally heard, when the bow’s horse-hair lovingly caressed my strings, and… Read more