Songs, dances and divertimenti: the Georgian 'Band of Music'

“VI. The musicians shall be obliged to wait upon the commanding officer so often as he desire to have musick, without any hope of gratification, but if they shall be desired to attend upon any other officer, they are to have a ducat per night [in Germany], but in England half a guinea.”

Band of Musick, Royal Regiment of Artillery; Article of Agreement, 1762

 Outside of the London season, the English upper classes abandoned their London residences to give lavish balls at their country estates: we need only think of Jane Austen’s depictions, particularly in Pride & Prejudice, to get a sense of the importance of one of these occasions. Visitors and house guests being persuaded (willingly or otherwise) to perform their party piece; impromptu performances of carols from the local villagers or wassailers; and endless dancing, of minuets, cotillions and the latest fashion, the quadrille, all meant that the festivities could go on sometimes until very early in the morning. Something that we see less often in TV adaptations is the presence of the local militia’s band of music.

“If your regiment should be provided with a band of music, you should immediately persuade the captains to raise one. This, you know, is kept at their expence, whilst you reap the principal benefit; for besides keeping them always with your company, and treating them as your private band, they will, if properly managed, as by lending them to private parties, assemblies, etc., serve to raise you a considerable interest among the gentlemen of the country, and, what is more, among the ladies.”

Advice to the Officers of the British Army (1782)

 In the late 18th century, ‘Bands of Music’ – ensembles of wind instruments – occupied a place between military and civilian life. The officer class consisted primarily of young noblemen on purchased commissions, who invested heavily in projecting the social status and sophistication of their regimental culture through their dress, conduct and activities (think George Wickham and his debts in Pride and Prejudice). These expenses included regimental musicians, whose recruitment and employment was often the responsibility of the officers. These musicians were rarely in military service, but rather were civilian musicians: the finest regiments recruited a highly-qualified bandmaster (sometimes from Hanover, such as Charles Frederick Eley), who assembled and trained the best musicians he could find. The result was that the most elite bands of music contained the same musicians who could be heard playing at the opera or pleasure gardens.  

Alderman Kirkman's funeral procession, 1780 [detail]

These civilian musicians had no desire or obligation to risk their lives on the battlefield, or indeed even to leave London with its lucrative theatre work, and so through the late-1800s increasing numbers of military-trained German musicians were imported, and eventually English schools of military music were founded. But in peace time the bands were most likely to be heard at ceremonial occasions in ensembles that sometimes included trumpets and drums; or in a social setting such as the officers’ mess, performing elegant divertimenti, where an ensemble of clarinets, horns, one or two bassoons and perhaps oboes would have sufficed. The abundance of music published in London between 1770 and 1820 for these groups testifies to their varied functions: the collection of 36 Select Pieces for a Military Band by Bath-based violinist and music director James Brooks, for instance, “consisting of Marches, Quick-Steps, Minuets and Rondos” allows for performances in a number of circumstances, including for entertainment in the mess or at social functions.

[at the Grand Masked Ball] “… the Band belonging to his Royal Highness the Duke of York’s Regiment of Guards will play in the Gallery over the entrance the forepart of the night, and afterwards in the New Dining Room during the time of Supper.”

The Times, London, 1 March 1794

J. C. Bach’s Four Military Pieces, published posthumously c.1795 with a dedication to Lord O’Neill, Colonel of the Antrim Militia, were also probably written for this very purpose. The title refers to the ensemble rather than the music, which displays very little that could be said to be martial: well worked-out first movements, beautiful slow movements, and elegant minuets and rondos might lead the listener to speculate whether the very young Mozart made his first acquaintance with the clarinet in the music of his friend when he visited London in 1764-5.

J. C. Bach Military Quintet no. 2: i. Allegro. Boxwood & Brass rehearsing in the 18th-century assembly room in Brackley Town Hall.

Bands of Music were often at the beck and call of the aristocrats who sponsored the regiments – a relationship close to the Austro-German model of musical patronage. One example is the Dorset Militia Band, led by the esteemed clarinetist John Mahon, which was at the disposal of its patron and colonel of the Dorsetshire Regiment, Lord Rivers. Through this association the Mahon family developed a relationship with James Harris, secretary to the Queen and a patron of Handel, who borrowed the militia band for his own entertainment. Like the J.C. Bach, the Quintet for two clarinets, two horns and bassoon that appears in Mahon’s Clarinet Instructor of c.1780 is probably an example of the kind of music that these musicians would have played for more intimate occasions.

by Robert Percival and Emily Worthington