Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

Esoteric strings

Updated on November 3, 2013 by Elena Greene

Last week I talked about the Regency pianofortes I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Here are a few more intriguing items from their collection of musical instruments.

My daughters play violin, so they were wondering about this. It looks like a violin or viola but instead of the usual four strings, it has twelve! It turns out it’s a viola d’amore, which can have twelve or fourteen strings. The top set are played in similar fashion to a regular violin or viola; the lower set vibrates sympathetically.

The viola d’amore was popular in the Baroque period. It probably wasn’t played much during the Regency, except perhaps at Concerts of Ancient Music put on by the London Concert Society (1776-1848).

Here’s the Vivaldi Concerto for viola d’amore and lute with soloists Enrico Onofri and Luca Pianca. The viola d’amore comes in at about 1:10. I love this performance!

This beautiful instrument is a lyre guitar, circa 1810, clearly showing the classical influence popular during the Regency. The plaque dismissively calls it a “fad” but a Regency heroine could definitely have played one. In this video, John Doan provides a history of the instrument, illustrated with some period portraits. At around 2:50 you can hear him play.

This instrument was labeled the dital harp, circa 1820. I’ve also seen it called a harp/lute. This is another instrument that could have been played by a Regency lady. I was able to find this charming video of Sarah Deere-Jones singing a popular Regency song, “The Last Rose of Summer”, in Regency garb, and accompanying herself with a Regency era harp/lute. Enjoy!

Did any of you know about these instruments before? Do you have any favorite unusual instruments?

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Music, Research | Tagged dital harp, harp/lute, lyre/guitar, Museum of Fine Arts, viola d'amore | 8 Replies

Drinking

Updated on October 28, 2013 by Myretta

Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. — James Boswell Journals 1775

As I just returned from the New Jersey Romance Writers annual conference (at which I had the delightful company of Megan, Elena, Gail, and Diane), I thought I’d write about drinking during the Regency. Now, don’t get me wrong, the conference was not a drunken route, but I did have the pleasure of being introduced to (but unfortunately unable to partake of) a variety of mixed drinks that were new to me and sounded totally delightful. As the weekend drew to a close, I started to think about what our counterparts would be imbibing during – say – a weekend in the country.

Peter H. Brown curated the “Come Drink the Bowl Dry” exhibit at Fairfax House in York in 1996 and wrote a brief but excellent companion book of the same name. This post will rely heavily on his research.

Although mead (fermented from honey) and ale (from barley) had been available long before our period and spirits were certainly available, the English country house from the late 18th century onward seemed to run on wine. The wine inventory at Fairfax House in the latter part of the 18th century included port, claret, malmsey madeira, burgundy, and sherry, to name a few. During a normal day, the household seemed to consume one bottle of port and three of sherry, apparently not an irregular amount.

Fairfax House cellar also included beers and ales. Compared to wine and beers, fermented fruit (cider and perry) were considered exotic and were less likely to be found in the cellar of a grand house. Distilled spirits (gin, brandy, arrack, rum) became popular in the 17th century and thence the popularity of the punch bowl. Here are three recipes for you:

One teaspoon of Coxwell’s acid salt of lemons; a quarter of a pound of sugar ,a quarto of boiling water ,half a pint of rum and a quarter of a pint of brandy; add a little lemon peel, if agreeable or a drop or to of essence of lemon. (Note: the boiling water was to enable the butler to dissolve the sugar: it all had to be dissolved before it could be served. — The Footman’s Directory and Butler’s Rememberancer – Thomas Cosnett(1823)

Three bottles of champagne ;two of Madeira, one of hock ,one of Curacao, one quart of brandy one pint of rum and two bottles of selzter-water, flavoured with four pounds of bloom raisins, Seville oranges, white sugar candy ,and diluted with iced green tea. —“Consuming Passions” by J Green,1984

In twenty parts of French brandy put in the peels of 30 lemons and 30 oranges pared so thin that the least of the white is left. Infuse twelve hours. Have ready 30 quarts of cold water that has boiled; put to it fifteen pounds of double refined sugar; and when well mixed, pour upon it the brandy and peels adding the juice of the oranges and of 24 lemons; mix well ,then strain through a very fine hair sieve into a clean barrel that has held spirits and put two quarts of new milk. Stir and then bung it to close; let it stand for 6 weeks in a warm cellar; bottle the liquor for use .this liquor will keep many years and improves with age. — Mrs. Rundell, 1816

Mrs. Rundell was apparently expecting a thirsty crowd. Perhaps she was organizing a weekend for romance writers.

Posted in Frivolity, Regency, Research | 1 Reply

Plummeting to earth in 1797

Updated on October 24, 2013 by Janet Mullany

I’m always impressed by the inventive Google doodles and I’m venturing into Elena territory today by talking about an event that took place in 1797 on October 22–the first descent by parachute by the daring Andre-Jacques Garnerin in Paris. This was how Google celebrated the event:

The parachute, more like an umbrella than a modern parachute, was attached to a balloon that, once it had achieved sufficient altitude, M. Garnerin let rip and plummeted to earth from 3,200′. No graceful floating with this prototype parachute. Allegedly he threw up on the enthralled crowd below. Later he adapted his parachute with a vent to make a less exciting descent for both himself and onlookers. You can read a description of the Parc Monceau, the scene of this daring adventure, at Bonjour Paris.

But it was in the following year that he achieved tremendous notoriety by taking a woman on a balloon ascent. Mon dieu! He had to appear before the Central Bureau of Police to assure them that Citoyenne Henri would suffer no ill effects to her delicate female constitution and that no hanky-panky would take place in the basket. It was eventually decided that a balloon ascent held the same moral danger as sharing a carriage, i.e., not much. Once again a crowd gathered in the Parc to see the first woman in a balloon–ever the showman, Garnerin had wisely chosen a young and pretty woman.

His wife Jeanne Genevieve was the first woman to make a parachute descent in 1799 from an altitude of 900 meters. In 1802, during the Peace of Amiens, he and Jeanne Genevieve visited England and made balloon ascents together, and M. Garnerin gave a parachute demonstration in a field near St. Pancras. On another balloon trip he carried a letter of introduction from the Prince Regent in case of a crash landing.

If you’ve ever been in a hot air balloon or parachuted, please tell us about it, and if you wish, report on the effect on your morals and delicate female constitution. And, this has nothing to do with it unless you consider NaNoWriMo the equivalent of diving into thin air: if you’re in or near Maryland, there’s still time to register for Saturday’s workshop Writing From the Ground Up.

Posted in History, Research, Writing | 7 Replies

Regency Pianos

Updated on October 22, 2013 by Elena Greene

Since Amanda is busy moving (hope it’s all going well, Amanda!) I promised to switch days with her. And promptly forgot, in the havoc of getting back from the New Jersey Romance Writers conference and trying to get the family and household back on track!

Anyway, I’m here now. Back in the summer, I had the chance to visit the vast and wonderful Museu m of Fine Arts in Boston. There were many highlights to the visit, but an unexpected one was their varied collection of musical instruments. I’ve been meaning to blog about it ever since, but it went onto the back burner as I was finishing Fly with a Rogue and taking my oldest on college visits.

One of the most striking pieces in the collection is this superb grand piano. It was made in 1796 by John Broadwood & Sons for Manual de Godoy, ambassador to King Carlos IV of Spain. The decoration was designed by Thomas Sheraton and the jasperware cameos are by Josiah Wedgewood. I took some pictures of the details. Apologies for the fuzziness, but you can get an idea anyway.

This is certainly the sort of instrument one could imagine in the house of one of our fictional dukes.

At the other end of the room, there was this square piano, made around 1770 in England by Johann Christoph Zume and Gabriel Buntebart. At about 5 octaves, this was the first type of piano to be commercially successful and became very popular. A vicar’s daughter type heroine could have afforded to play a piano like this one.

Here is Vladimir Pleshakov playing Bonifacio Asioli’s 1795 Sonata on a 1795 Broadwood grand. According to the comments, the pianoforte pictured is actually of a later date, unfortunately.

Next week I’ll post about some of the more esoteric instruments in the collection.

Can any of you picture yourselves playing these instruments? I can–in my Regency fantasies!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Music, Research | Tagged Museum of Fine Arts, Music, piano, pianoforte | 8 Replies

Edgar Allan Poe and the Regency

Updated on October 7, 2013 by Diane Gaston

On this date in 1849, Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore. The exact cause of his death are still unknown and theories have included alcoholism, porphryria (What George III had), heart problems, murder, rabies, and carbon monoxide. On October 3, 1849, after being missing for five days, a delirious Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore and taken to Washington Medical College. He was wearing clothes that were not his but never gained consciousness to explain why, nor why he was in Baltimore. He’d left Virginia the week before, bound for New York.

After Poe died, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who’d long borne a grudge against Poe, set upon destroying Poe’s reputation. Griswold wrote an obituary (under an assumed name), an article and ultimately a biography of Poe that depicted Poe as a depraved drunkard and drug addict. The biography was disputed by those who knew Poe. Poe was not, for example, a drug addict. Griswold’s hope to destroy Poe’s literary reputation backfired, though. His biography became popular and sparked a great interest and respect for Poe’s works that had been absent during his lifetime. Poe has become one of America’s literary greats, while Griswold is only remembered as his biographer.

This is interesting, you say, but what does it have to do with the Regency?

In 1815, when Poe was about six years old, he moved with his foster parents, the Allans (he was orphaned at 3 and taken in by the Allans) to Britain, attending school briefly in Irvine, Scotland, before rejoining the Allans in London in 1816. He attended boarding schools in Chelsea and Stoke Newington before he and the family moved back to Richmond, Virginia, in 1820.

During the time the characters in our books were engaging in their fascinating romances, little Edgar Allan Poe was sitting on a wooden bench nearby studying his lessons. One has to wonder what effect those years in and around Regency London had on him.

Do you have a favorite Poe story or poem?

By the way, I have the cover for A Marriage of Notoriety, book 2 in The Masquerade Club series, due on bookstore shelves Dec 17. There’s a great deal on the book at Amazon right now. You can pre-order the paperback at $3.90, almost half price