Category Archives: Music

Trollflötjen

Posted on 31/12/2019 by carolinemmurray

There are various reasons (excuses), some flimsier than others, for the long delay since I last put quill to vellum. First, there was the Mill Road Winter Fair, which took up all my spare time for several weeks; then there … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Museums and Galleries, Music | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Charterhouse

Posted on 28/03/2019 by carolinemmurray

Another real bargain in London … Last week I took a tour of the Charterhouse. In my case it was organised by the Friends of Strawberry Hill, but you can book online yourself. I was escorted there by kind relatives … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Gardens, History, London, Museums and Galleries, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Small-Coals and Concerts

Posted on 30/09/2018 by carolinemmurray

Looking something up in the ODNB, it’s terrifyingly easy to get distracted. Who could resist the siren call of this entry heading: ‘Britton, Thomas (1644–1714), concert promoter, book collector, and coal merchant’? And, as you read on, the story of … Continue reading →

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Burkat Shudi

Posted on 15/03/2018 by carolinemmurray

I had been vaguely aware for some time that there existed in London in the eighteenth century a harpsichord-maker called Burkat Shudi. On 12 March I noticed that his date of birth was 13 March 1702. On 13 March I … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Cambridge, London, Museums and Galleries, Music, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Object Of The Month: November

Posted on 24/11/2016 by carolinemmurray

In the Western Christian churches, Advent is the period of four weeks (or so) before Christmas Day, beginning on the Sunday closest to the feast of St Andrew on 30 November. This year it falls on 27 November, and may … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, Music, Printing and Publishing, Venice | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Dream of Gerontius

Posted on 15/06/2016 by carolinemmurray

I tend to fight shy of opining about music, since it’s an area where I feel even more fraudulently incompetent than usual, but I am going to make an exception for the wonderful concert I attended last Saturday.

Posted in Biography, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Unlit Candles

Posted on 24/02/2016 by carolinemmurray

What I know about the Tractarian controversy of the nineteenth century could be written on the head of a very tiny pin and is mostly drawn from the fiction of Antony Trollope (though I have no reason to believe he’s … Continue reading →

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Herod, That Moody King

Posted on 16/12/2015 by carolinemmurray

Last Christmas, the Cambridge Library Collection reissued Songs of the Nativity, Being Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, edited by William Henry Husk (1814–87), a solicitor’s clerk and amateur singer who was librarian of the Sacred Harmonic Society in London. (He … Continue reading →

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Object of the Month: November

Posted on 24/11/2015 by carolinemmurray

This month’s object is a bit of a cheat. It is held by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, but is not currently on display – nor, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, when he viewed it in 1833, should it ever have … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Music | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

1876: Annus Normalis?

Posted on 20/08/2015 by carolinemmurray

Him Indoors is trying to persuade me that what we really need to make us happy in our declining years is the expenditure of large amounts of money in order to recondition his piano, made by the great firm of … Continue reading →

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