Charles Burney | |
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 Charles Burney bySir Joshua Reynolds in 1781 | |
| Born | (1726-04-07)7 April 1726 Shrewsbury, England |
| Died | 12 April 1814(1814-04-12) (aged 88) |
| Occupations |
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| Relatives | Frances Burney (daughter) Sarah Burney (daughter) Susan Burney (daughter) James Burney (son) Charles Burney (son) |
Charles BurneyFRS (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an Englishmusic historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writersFrances Burney andSarah Burney, of the explorerJames Burney, and ofCharles Burney, a classicist and book donor to theBritish Museum. He was a close friend and supporter ofJoseph Haydn and other composers.
Charles Burney was born at Raven Street,Shrewsbury, the fourth of six children of James Macburney (1678–1749), a musician, dancer and portrait painter, and his second wife Ann (née Cooper,c. 1690–1775). In childhood he and a brother Richard (1723–1792) were for unknown reasons sent to the care of a "Nurse Ball" at nearbyCondover, where they lived until 1739. He began formal education atShrewsbury School in 1737 and was later sent in 1739 toThe King's School, Chester, where his father then lived and worked. His first music master was a Mr Baker, the cathedral organist,[1] and a pupil ofJohn Blow. Returning to Shrewsbury at the age of 15, Burney continued his musical studies for three years under his half-brother, James Burney, organist ofSt Mary's Church, and was then sent to London as a pupil ofThomas Arne for three years.[2]
Burney wrote some music for Arne'sAlfred, which was produced atDrury Lane Theatre on 30 March 1745. In 1749 he was appointed organist ofSt Dionis Backchurch,Fenchurch Street, with a salary of £30 a year. According to the voting book, he secured the post against six other candidates with votes 50 to 4. He was also engaged to take theharpsichord in the "New Concerts" then recently established at the King's Arms, Cornhill. It was for his health that he went in 1751 toLynn Regis inNorfolk, where he was elected organist, with an annual salary of £100. He lived there for nine years. During that time he began to entertain the idea of writing a general history of music. HisOde for St Cecilia's Day was performed atRanelagh Gardens in 1759. In 1760 he returned to London in good health and with a young family. His eldest child, Esther, a girl of eight, surprised the public with her achievements as a harpsichord player. The concertos for harpsichord which Burney published soon after his return to London were much admired. In 1766 he produced, atDrury Lane, a translation and adaptation ofJean-Jacques Rousseau's operaLe Devin du village, under the title ofThe Cunning Man.
In 1749, while working as an organist and harpsichordist in London, Charles marriedEsther Sleepe (c.1725–1762). The couple had six children: Esther or Hetty, who later became Mrs Burney on marrying her cousin Charles Rousseau Burney,[3] the explorerJames Burney, the celebrated writerFrances Burney (often called Fanny), the correspondentSusan (Susy),[4] Charlotte (later Mrs Francis), andCharles Burney, a classicist and school headmaster.
As vividly recorded by Fanny, the family moved in a lively cultural circle in London, which included the portrait painterSir Joshua Reynolds, the lexicographerSamuel Johnson, the playwrightRichard Brinsley Sheridan, the composersHarriet Wainwright andJoseph Haydn, the essayistEdmund Burke and the MP for SouthwarkHenry Thrale, whose wifeHester Thrale was a close friend of Fanny's.
Charles's first wife Esther died in 1761. In 1767 he was married a second time, to Elizabeth Allen (Mrs Stephen Allen) ofLynn. From this union he had a son, Richard Thomas, and a daughter,Sarah Harriet Burney, who became a novelist.
TheUniversity of Oxford honoured Burney, on 23 June 1769, with the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music, and his own work was performed. This consisted of an anthem, with an overture, solos, recitatives and choruses, accompanied by instruments, besides a vocal anthem in eight parts, which was not performed. In 1769 he publishedAn essay towards a history of the principal comets that have appeared since 1742. Amidst his various professional avocations, Burney never lost sight of his main project, hisHistory of Music. He decided to travel abroad and collect materials that could not be found in Britain. He left London in June 1770, carrying numerous letters of introduction, and travelled to Paris,Geneva,Turin,Milan,Padua,Venice,Bologna (where he metWolfgang Amadeus Mozart and hisfather),Florence,Rome andNaples. The results of his observations were published in a well-received book,The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771). In July 1772 Burney again visited the continent to do further research, and on his return to London published an account of his tour under the titleThe Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces (1773). In 1773 he was elected a fellow of theRoyal Society.
In 1776 appeared the first volume (in quarto) of Burney's long-projectedHistory of Music.[5] In 1782 Burney published his second volume; and in 1789 the third and fourth. TheHistory of Music was generally well received, although criticized byForkel in Germany and by the Spanish ex-Jesuit, Requeno, who in hisSaggj sul Ristabilimento dell' Arte Armonica de' Greci e Romani Canton (Parma, 1798) attacked Burney's account of ancient Greek music and called himlo scompigliato Burney (the confused Burney). The fourth volume covers the birth and development of opera and the musical scene in England in Burney's time.[6] Burney's first tour was translated into German byChristoph Daniel Ebeling, and printed at Hamburg in 1772. His second tour, translated into German byJohann Joachim Christoph Bode, was published at Hamburg in 1773. A Dutch translation of his second tour, with notes by J. W. Lustig, organist atGroningen, was published there in 1786. TheDissertation on the Music of the Ancients, in the first volume of Burney's History, was translated into German byJohann Joachim Eschenburg, and printed at Leipzig, 1781. Burney derived much aid from the first two volumes ofPadre Martini's very learnedStoria della Musica (Bologna, 1757–1770).
In 1774 he had writtenA Plan for a Music School. In 1779 he wrote for the Royal Society an account of the youngWilliam Crotch, whose remarkable musical talent excited so much attention at that time. In 1784 he published, with an Italian title page, the music annually performed in the Pope's chapel at Rome duringPassion Week. In 1785 he published, for the benefit of the Musical Fund, an account of the firstcommemoration ofGeorge Friedrich Handel inWestminster Abbey in the preceding year, with a life of Handel. In 1796 he publishedMemoirs and Letters ofMetastasio.
Towards the close of his life Burney was paid £1000 for contributing toRees's Cyclopædia all the musical articles not belonging to the department of natural philosophy and mathematics.[8] The latter were written by John Farey,Sr andJr. Burney'scontribution to Rees included much new material which had not appeared in his earlier writings, particularly about the London music scene then.[9] In 1783, through the treasury influence of his friendEdmund Burke, he was appointed organist to the chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. He moved there from St Martin's Street,Leicester Square and remained there for the rest of his life. He penned and published a sonnet in honour of Joseph Haydn, whom he had been in correspondence with throughout Haydn's two trips to London. His admiration for Handel greatly influenced Haydn's decision to focus on oratorio upon his return to Vienna, which would eventually result in the composition ofThe Creation. In 1810, he was made a member of the Institute of France and nominated a correspondent in the class of the fine arts. From 1806 until his death he enjoyed a pension of £300 granted byCharles James Fox. He died at Chelsea College on 12 April 1814, and was interred in the burial ground of the college. A tablet was erected to his memory inWestminster Abbey.
Burney's library was sold at auction by John White of Westminster beginning on 8 August 1814.[10]
Burney's portrait was painted byReynolds in 1781 forHenry Thrale's library. His bust was cut by Nollekens in 1805. He also appears inJames Barry'sThe Thames (also known asTriumph of Navigation), which was painted in 1791 for theRoyal Society of Arts. He had a wide circle of acquaintance among the distinguished artists and literary men of his day. At one time he thought of writing a life of his friendSamuel Johnson, but retired before the crowd of biographers who rushed into that field.
Burney's eldest son,James Burney, was a distinguished officer in theRoyal Navy, who died a rear-admiral in 1821, having accompaniedCaptain Cook on his last two voyages. His second son was the Rev.Charles Burney, a major donor of books to the British Museum, and his second daughter was Frances or Fanny, the novelist, laterMadame D'Arblay. Her published diary and letters contain many minute and interesting particulars of her father's public and private life, and of his friends and contemporaries, including his initial opposition to her marriage to the French refugee Alexandre D'Arblay in 1793 and to her sister Charlotte's remarriage to the pamphleteer and stock jobberRalph Broome in 1798.[11] A life of Burney was compiled by Madame D'Arblay and appeared in 1832, but it has been criticized consistently for being eulogistic.[12] His daughter by his second marriage,Sarah Burney, was likewise a novelist. Her letters provide interesting, less adulatory information about her father. Although Sarah looked after him in his old age, their personal relations remained poor.[13]
Samuel Johnson drew inspiration fromThe Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771), according to later writers: "Dr. Burney published an account of his tour ... which was extremely well received, and deemed by the best judges so good a model for travellers who were inclined to give a description of what they had seen or observed, that Dr. Johnson professedly imitated it in his own Tour of the Hebrides, saying, 'I had that clever dog Burney'sMusical Tour in my eye.'"[14]
Burney appears in a story byLillian de la Torre (Lillian Bueno McCue, 1902–1993), an American writer of historical mysteries, entitled "The Viotti Stradivarius", part of her series featuring Samuel Johnson as a "detector" (detective). The story features a fictitious meeting between Burney, his daughterFanny,Giovanni Battista Viotti and hisStradivarius, andGrigory Grigoryevich Orlov, along with Johnson andJames Boswell, in connection with the theft and recovery of theOrlov diamond.[15]
After his death in 1814, Burney's daughter Frances destroyed many manuscripts, including his journals, and obliterated passages in others.[16] Burney's library was sold at auction in London by Leigh & Sotheby on 9 June 1814 (and eight following days); a copy of the sale catalogue is held at Cambridge University Library (shelfmark Munby.c.163(7)). Surviving papers are widely scattered: in the Osborn Collection at Yale University, the Berg Collection at New York Public Library, the British Library and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and in smaller public and private collections. (SeeRoger Lonsdale,Dr Charles Burney, a Literary Biography, Oxford 1965 pp 495–497.) The Burney Centre at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, has long been publishing the papers of the Burney family, including those of Charles and his daughter, Francis (Fanny Burney).
The Letters of Dr Charles Burney (1751–1814) General Editor: Peter Sabor
A scholarly edition of the Letters of Dr Charles Burney is being published in six volumes by Oxford University Press:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Burney, Charles".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Many of the following refer to Burney's music articles in Rees'sCyclopaedia, (1802–1819).
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