1 Earlier versions of this article have been presented at the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society, UC Irvine, 24 February 1990; the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of San Diego, 9 February 1991; and the 66th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Toronto, 3 November 2001. My particular thanks go to Dr Philip Olleson for his encouragement and for his patient examination of multiple drafts of this essay (and its voluminous associated materials).Google Scholar

2 See Cudworth, Charles, ‘The English Symphonists of the Eighteenth Century’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 78 (1951–2), 31–51, expanded with an appendix as English Eighteenth-Century Symphonies: Paper and Thematic Index (London, 1953; repr. Nendeln, 1969); also Stanley Sadie, ‘British Chamber Music, 1720–1790’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1958) and idem, ‘Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century England’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 85 (1958–9), 17–30.Google Scholar

3 For example, K.E. James, ‘Concert-Life in Eighteenth-Century Bath’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1987); Jenny Burchell, Polite or Commercial Concerts?: Concert Management and Orchestral Repertoire in Edinburgh, Bath, Oxford, Manchester, and Newcastle, 1730–1799 (New York & London, 1996); Brian Robins, ‘John Marsh and Provincial Music Making in Eighteenth-Century England’, Research Chronicle, 29 (1996), 96–142; Rosemary Southey, ‘Commercial Music-Making in Eighteenth-Century North-East England: A Pale Reflection of London?‘ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2001); Susan Wollenberg, Music at Oxford in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Oxford, 2001); Susan Wollenberg and Simon McVeigh, eds., Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Aldershot, forthcoming [2004]).Google Scholar

4 In particular, see Thomas B. Milligan, The Concerto and London's Musical Culture in the Late Eighteenth Century, Studies in Musicology, 69 (Ann Arbor, 1983); Alyson McLamore, ‘Symphonic Conventions in London's Concert Rooms, circa 1755–1790‘ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1991); William Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology (Oxford, 1992); Simon McVeigh, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn (Cambridge, 1993); Jane Girdham, English Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London: Stephen Storace at Drury Lane (Oxford, 1997).Google Scholar

5 Simon McVeigh maintains a rich database of music information gleaned from London newspapers in his Calendar of London Concerts 1750–1800, Advertised in the London Daily Press (University of London, Goldsmiths College, 1990–).Google Scholar

6 Weber discusses the ideology underlying much of this ‘canon’ formulation in his Rise of Musical Classics.Google Scholar

7 See, for instance, advertisements for works by J.C. Bach, Adalbert Gyrowetz, Ignace Joseph Pleyel, and Peter von Winter in The Public Advertiser on 19 April 1784, 9 March 1785, and 25 February 1786 (etc.) and The Morning Post on 28 February 1789 and 21 March 1789.Google Scholar

8 The Public Advertiser, 7 November 1763, 3.Google Scholar

9 Title page of Six Overtures in 8 Parts… compos'd by Sigr. Bach, Galuppi, Jomelli, Perez - Sixth Collection (London, [c.1764]).Google Scholar

10 See note 3 above. The eighteenth-century musician and diarist John Marsh (1752–1828) also left a host of valuable source materials; see Robins, ‘John Marsh and Provincial Music Making’; idem. The John Marsh Journals: The Life and Times of a Gentleman Composer (1752–1828) (Stuyvesant, NY, 1998); and Charles Cudworth, ‘An Essay by John Marsh’, Music & Letters, 36 (1955), 155–64.Google Scholar

11 Samuel Wesley, [Reminiscences], British Library (hereafter Lbl), Add. 27593, p. 6.Google Scholar

12 John Fletcher to Charles Wesley, letter of 13 October 1771; Wesley-Langshaw Correspondence: Charles Wesley, His Sons, and the Lancaster Organists, ed. Arthur W. Wainwright (n.p., 1993), 3.Google Scholar

13 John Fletcher to Charles Wesley, letter of January 1775, in Letters of the Rev. John Fletcher, ed. Melville Horne (New York, 1849), 261; also quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 3.Google Scholar

14 Catalogued in the Methodist Archives and Research Centre of the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (henceforth MARC) as DDWES 6/57; Michael Kassler and Philip Olleson, Samuel Weslev (1766–1837): A Source Book [hereafter SWSB] (Aldershot, 2001), 554.Google Scholar

15 MARC DDCW 8/24, 1 and [17].Google Scholar

16 MARC DDCW 8/24, 3 and [18].Google Scholar

17 MARC DDCW 8/24, 4.Google Scholar

18 Barrington was a lawyer and judge with a wide range of interests; he also subscribed to at least eight seasons of the Wesley concerts. In addition to accounts of several musical prodigies, including Mozart (whom he examined during Mozart's visit to London in 1764–5), Barrington's Miscellanies contain essays pertaining to natural history and geography; Daines Barrington, Miscellanies (London, 1781), 289–310.Google Scholar

19 MARC DDCW 6/59. Although the Methodist Archives catalogue entry for this item describes it as a ‘list of the audience present at a performance by the Wesley brothers in 1777’, the reference to the ‘late’ Bishop of London indicates that the tally was retrospective rather than reflecting a single event. There is certainly no evidence in the Wesley family papers to document a performance to such a substantial audience.Google Scholar

20 Quoted in Gareth Lloyd, ‘Charles Wesley, Junior: Prodigal Child, Unfulfilled Adult’, Proceedings of The Charles Wesley Society, 5 (1998), 27.Google Scholar

21 Wesley, [Reminiscences], 87. This concert took place at 12 noon on 20 May 1777 for the benefit of the Messrs. Rauppe (the ‘cellists). Samuel was billed anonymously as ‘a young gentleman’ who would perform at the end of Act II (see The Public Advertiser, 17 May 1777, 1).Google Scholar

22 See Lloyd, ‘Charles Wesley, Junior’, 25–7.Google Scholar

23 The house has been torn down, and the street renamed, but a blue historical plaque at 1 Wheatley Street, Marylebone, marks its former location at the intersection of Wheatley and Wesley Streets; SWSB, 11.Google Scholar

24 There has been a long-standing tradition, dating at least from 1902 (F.G. Edwards' article, ‘Samuel Wesley 1766–1837’, The Musical Times, 43 (1902), 525), that the Chesterfield Street house already contained the two organs and a harpsichord at the time it was given to the Wesleys. No surviving direct evidence supports this assumption, but clearly there were two organs in the house by the time of the inaugural concert. Not only do the programmes for the family concerts make repeated references to ‘Duet for Two Organs’ from 1779 onward, but two other bits of supporting evidence have come to light: on 20 February 1781, Charles snr. received a letter from Sir Edward Walpole in which Walpole expressed a preference for hearing the concertos at ‘Charles's home’ as he would then be able to hear the two organs played together by Charles's sons (MARC DDPr 1/80). Moreover, there was expenditure in 1782 (recorded in MARC DDCW 8/15) of £4. 2s., for ‘Tuning Organs’, indicating there were two instruments to tune.Google Scholar

25 Charles Wesley to Sarah Wesley, letter of 10 September 1778; summarized in SWSB, 110.Google Scholar

26 Barrington, Miscellanies, ‘Account of Samuel Wesley’, 303.Google Scholar

27 Charles Wesley jnr. to Sally Wesley, letter of 7 July 1776; summarized in SWSB, 102.Google Scholar

28 Charles Wesley snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 16 November 1778; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 23.Google Scholar

29 This concert does not appear in the ‘Significant Events in Wesley's Life’ calendar in SWSB, 21–67, but certainly represents one of Samuel's first ‘professional’ music-making activities.Google Scholar

30 MARC DDCW 8/21, 1–2.Google Scholar

31 Concert Proposal, MARC DDCW 8/21, 3.Google Scholar

32 John Russell had become a staunch Methodist in 1764, at the age of 19.Google Scholar

33 Charles Wesley snr. to William Russell, letter of 21 December 1778; summarized in SWSB, 112.Google Scholar

34 Charles Wesley snr. to Samuel Wesley, letter of 6 March 1773; quoted in Philip Olleson, ‘The Wesleys at Home: Charles Wesley and His Children’, Methodist History, 36 (1998), 146; also summarized in SWSB, 97.Google Scholar

35 MARC DDWES 4/65. The Rylands catalogue describes this item as a letter to Garret Wellesley, since a later hand (possibly Samuel's) has added the name ‘Lord Mornington’, with the comment, ‘This was most probably written in the time of his Lordship's private morning, when he brought his own compositions joined to ours. I cannot remember what year it was in’. On the strength of this ascription, numerous later writers have accepted the text as correspondence from Charles snr. However, although the original document is in Charles snr.'s handwriting, there is no indication of an intended recipient, and there is no evidence that it was sent as a letter.Google Scholar

36 Charles Wesley snr. to John Wesley, letter of 23 April 1779; printed in Arminian Magazine, 12 (1789), 387. Also quoted in James T. Lightwood, Samuel Wesley, Musician: The Story of His Life (London, 1937; New York, 1972), 52.Google Scholar

37 Printed in Arminian Magazine, 12 (1789), 387. Also quoted in Frederick C. Gill, Charles Wesley, the First Methodist (London, 1964), 191.Google Scholar

38 Wesley, [Reminiscences], 3; also discussed in MARC DDWES 6/57 (summarized in SWSB, 555).Google Scholar

39 Thomas Coke to John Wesley, letter of 15 December 1779; summarized in Olleson, ‘The Wesleys at Home’, 147.Google Scholar

40 The concerts for Lady Home (?Home) are interesting in that they use a number of different personnel than the performers usually found in the Wesleys' home concerts, nor does Samuel serve as concert master. The repertory differs to some degree as well: all the vocal selections appear to be sacred, and it is only here that they performed a hymn by Samuel's godfather Martin Madan—not at their own series.Google Scholar

41 Morning Chronicle 8 January 1783; Morning Herald 6 and 22 January 1783; Morning Herald 2 February 1785.Google Scholar

42 Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum. Vol. III, Instrumental Music, Treatises, Etc. (London, 1909), 382.Google Scholar

43 SWSB, 24 and 27.Google Scholar

44 No explanation for the change of evening in the last season has come to light. The alteration avoided a conflict with the 1787 Pantheon concerts, but the Wesley concerts had been presented on the same evening as other major series for the preceding three years.Google Scholar

45 MARC DDCW 8/21, 25–6, with another (incomplete) copy at Duke University, Frank Baker Collection. In actuality, only 50 persons chose to subscribe that second season.Google Scholar

46 MARC DDWES 7/42.Google Scholar

47 MARC DDWES 7/41.Google Scholar

48 MARC DDCW 8/15.Google Scholar

49 London, Royal Academy of Music (hereafter Lam) MS-L (Wesley), p. 46.Google Scholar

50 Lam MS-L (Wesley), p. [74]; MARC DDCW 8/15 lists a cost of 10s. for the ‘Proposals and Tickets’.Google Scholar

51 Lam MS-L (Wesley), p. 87.Google Scholar

52 Morning Herald, 2 February 1785, 1.Google Scholar

53 Morning Herald, 6 January and 22 January 1783; Morning Chronicle, 8 January 1783.Google Scholar

54 The Composer Index alphabetizes the composers whose works were heard in the concerts, grouping the specific pieces by genre under each composer's name.Google Scholar

55 See, for instance, catalogue items 404—409 in Kassler and Olleson, SWSB. (‘KO’ numbers will hereafter refer to the catalogue contained in this Source Book.)Google Scholar

56 For the first item of Act III of Mrs Hervey's concert (see the Appendix, Item 1), Charles snr. used both terms.Google Scholar

57 The pentachord had appeared as early in England as 1759, when Abel played it during his benefit concert. See The Public Advertiser, 27 March 1759, 1, where it was claimed that the pentachord was 'newly invented in England“.Google Scholar

58 The Public Advertiser, 17 May 1782, 1; and 11 April 1783, 1.Google Scholar

59 One of the Wesleys' subscribers, Sir Edward Walpole, evidently also had some modest expertise on the pentachord, or at least some appreciation for it. In his letter of 20 February 1781, he mentioned that Giacobbe Basevi Cervetto had dedicated his solos to Walpole so that Walpole would have a chance in public to express his opinion of the pentachord. Walpole noted his fear the Cervetto might have overstated Walpole's musical ability, but that Walpole tolerated it for ‘sake of the Pentachord’ (MARC DDPr 1/80).Google Scholar

60 No composer is given for the glee, performed at Concert 41, but it may have been by Lord Mornington, whose instrumental works were played on several other occasions. The suggestion for this attribution comes from the writer Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859), who met Sally Wesley while she was his sister Mary's governess in the mid-1790s. He had heard about the concerts through Sally, and reported in his Autobiographic Sketches that Miss Wesley's family had great musical sensibility and skill. This led the family into giving musical parties, at which was constantly to be found Lord Mornington, the father of the Duke of Wellington. For these parties it was, as Miss Wesley informed me, that the earl composed his most celebrated glee [presumably a reference to Here in cool grot]. (See Thomas de Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches (Boston, 1876), 154; also quoted in James T. Lightwood, Samuel Wesley, Musician: The Story of His Life (London, 1937; New York, 1972), 57.)Google Scholar

Nevertheless, as Charles snr. did not include a text incipit for the glee, it is impossible to confirm de Quincey's (or Sally's) assertion.Google Scholar

61 Numbered as KO 288 in SWSB, 622.Google Scholar

62 Kassler and Olleson (SWSB) note that the trio was ‘apparently composed jointly’ by the three performers (637), but Charles snr. gave Samuel the sole credit in the concert programme.Google Scholar

63 MARC DDCW 8/21, p. 21.Google Scholar

64 ‘Reminiscences of Samuel Wesley’, Lbl Add. 27593, p. 37.Google Scholar

65 For the problematic first and third years, performers are ‘checked’ only when their names appear in programmes for a particular evening. Question marks are used to indicate their probable participation on other nights of those seasons.Google Scholar

66 An alphabetized list of performers, along with further biographical information, is included in the Performer Index.Google Scholar

67 Samuel Wesley to Mary Freeman Shepherd, letter of 26 December 1783; summarized in SWSB, 123.Google Scholar

68 Samuel Wesley to Charles Burney, letter of 4 September 1809; reproduced in Philip Olleson ed., The Letters of Samuel Wesley: Professional and Social Correspondence, 1797–1837 (Oxford, 2001), 117–19. Also summarized in SWSB, 264.Google Scholar

69 Lam MS-L (Wesley), 51–7.Google Scholar

70 ‘Mr Harrison’ sang for the Wesleys on thirteen occasions, but only a handful of his pieces can be identified with any certainty. Regrettably, these fail to pinpoint Harrison's voice type (and therefore his identity), since—as seen below—they represent a mixture of works for high and low voice (with both ranges needed at Concert 18):Google Scholar

71 She may have also been the singer at Mrs Hervey's concert; see the Appendix, Item 1.Google Scholar

72 The society required a sponsor to nominate candidates, who then were voted on; acceptance was by no means routine. See Drummond, Pippa, ‘The Royal Society of Musicians in the Eighteenth Century’, Music & Letters, 59 (1978), 268–89; Betty Matthews, The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, List of Members, 1738–1984 (London, 1985); and eadem, A History of the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, 1738–1988 (London, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 A list of performers in the Handel Concerts was published in Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon, May 26th, 27th, 29th; and June the 3d, and 5th, 1784. In Commemoration of Handel (London, 1785; reprinted, with an introduction by Peter Kivy, New York, 1979), 17–21. Much additional information about London musicians was codified by Joseph Doane in A Musical Directory for the Year 1794 (London, [1794]).Google Scholar

74 An ‘Attwood’ figures in the journals of John Wesley as an active Methodist, who may be identified with Thomas Attwood. Moreover, his son (also Thomas) achieved even greater fame as a musician and as a pupil of Mozart.Google Scholar

75 Edwards, F.G., ‘Samuel Wesley 1766–1837‘, The Musical Times, 43 (1902), 526.Google Scholar

76 McVeigh, Concert Life, 168 and 193.Google Scholar

77 Samuel Wesley, [Reminiscences], 133.Google Scholar

78 The Morning Chronicle, 22 December 1773.Google Scholar

79 See ‘Table 9: Fees for concert performances’ in McVeigh, Concert Life, 193.Google Scholar

80 Lam MS-L (Wesley), p. [78].Google Scholar

81 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 15/17 July 1780; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 44.Google Scholar

82 A small ticket engraved with the words ‘Concert 1780’ and initialled ‘C.S.W’ is held in the Methodist Archives as MARC DDCW 4/4; this is possibly a subscription ticket from the family concerts.Google Scholar

83 The discrepancy is due to differing subscription income figures in the surviving records.Google Scholar

84 Roy Porter (quoting W. Speck, Stability and Strife, London, 1977), English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth, 1982), 386–7.Google Scholar

85 See Concerts 24 and 37.Google Scholar

86 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 25 September 1780; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 46.Google Scholar

87 Richard John Samuel Stevens, Recollections, ed. M. Argent (Basingstoke, 1992); quoted in McVeigh, Concert Life, 219.Google Scholar

88 Or perhaps only two more; Wesley family members in the audience were not tallied during 1779.Google Scholar

89 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 1 February 1779; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 27.Google Scholar

90 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 6 April 1779; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 32.Google Scholar

91 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 26 October 1779; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 40.Google Scholar

92 John Egerton to Charles snr., letter of 23 April 1781; summarized in SWSB, 118.Google Scholar

93 Lam MS-L (Wesley), p. 77. Charles snr. seems to have been entertained by the name ‘Oliver Cromwell’, since he used printed letters for the citation rather than his customary cursive script in the 31 March 1785 attendance list (Lam MS-L (Wesley), p. 100); ‘Mazanti’ (or Joseph Mazzinghi?) was similarly singled out on 4 March 1784 (Lam MS-L (Wesley), p. 79), as was Lord Cambden on 5 April 1781 (MARC DDCW 8/21, p. [56]).Google Scholar

94 The subscription address given for the Wesleys' guest in 1780 was ‘Gloster’ S[treet], N[umber] 16, while the author of the famous dictionary had resided at Bolt Court, No. 8, from 1776 until the time of his death in 1784 (W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson (New York, 1977), 501–2). Moreover, the Wesleys' Samuel Johnson was usually listed in conjunction with ‘Mrs Johnson’ and on occasion ‘Miss Johnson‘—family relationships that the lexicographer lacked.Google Scholar

95 Perhaps ‘Bromfeild’; there is disagreement about the proper spelling of the surgeon's surname, but 1 have followed the spelling used in the Dictionary of National Biography, as well as the spelling used consistently by Charles snr.Google Scholar

96 The itemized list of purchases, costing £3 15s. 3d., included works by Borghi, Geminiani, Handel, Corelli, and Giardini—doubtlessly much of the repertory that later would figure in the family's concert programmes; see MARC DDCW 4/15. According to Helen E. Davis' short biography of ‘The Carrs: A Musical Family’ (in The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, 24 (1965), 56–68), Joseph's oldest daughter, Alice, died in infancy in 1770. Although Joseph fathered three more daughters, they all would have been too young to participate as performers in the Wesley family concerts. It is more likely that ‘Miss Carr’ is the daughter of Joseph's brother Benjamin (1731–80), who was a London musical instrument maker; he had married in 1759, some seven years before Joseph.Google Scholar

97 The Carrs have been the subject of numerous studies, beginning with V.L. Redway, ‘The Carrs, American Music Publishers’, Musical Quarterly, 18 (1932), 150–77, and most recently in S. Siek, ‘Benjamin Carr's Theatrical Career’, American Music, 11 (1993), 158–84.Google Scholar

98 Robert Bremner to Charles snr., letter of 18 November 1780; MARC DDWES 7/110.Google Scholar

99 MARC DDCW 8/21, p. [51].Google Scholar

100 John Wesley journal entry of 25 January 1781, quoted in Nehemiah Curnock, editor, The Journals of the Rev. John Wesley, A. M. (London, 1909–16), vi, 303–4.Google Scholar

101 Martha Hall had given birth to ten children, but only one son, Wesley, survived infancy. Around 1769, however, he died of smallpox at age 14, so he cannot be identified as the ‘Mr Hall’ who attended concerts with Mrs Hall. The biographer Adam Clarke relates that Martha Hall later took in one of her husband's illegitimate children as her own, at least for a time; perhaps this is the later ‘Mr Hall’. See Clarke, Adam, Memoirs of the Wesley Family; Collected Principally from Original Documents (2nd edn: New York, 1848), 576–82. On the other hand, the Halls in the attendance lists may represent two other people entirely.Google Scholar

102 No additional information about this performance has come to light.Google Scholar

101 Sarah Wesley to Sally Wesley, letter of 13 May 1786; summarized in SWSB, 130.Google Scholar

104 ‘Musical Intelligence’, The Morning Chronicle, 4 February 1785. It is possible that the Wesleys organized yet another concert series at some undisclosed ‘dancing master's room’ in 1785, but it is equally possible that the newspaper writer simply was mistaken about the family concerts' venue. Chesterfield Street was one of London's newer streets at the time of the Wesley family's occupancy, which supports the latter supposition.Google Scholar

105 Charles Burney, ‘An Account of an Infant Musician’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 69, pt. 1 (1779), 202–3.Google Scholar

106 Charles Burney, A General History of Music (London, 1789; repr. New York, [n.d.]), ii, 1021–2.Google Scholar

107 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 6 April 1779; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 32.Google Scholar

108 Charles snr. to John Langshaw, letter of 4 November 1783; quoted in Wesley-Langshaw, 64.Google Scholar

109 Sarah Wesley to Sally Wesley, letter of 13 May 1786; summarized in SWSB, 130.Google Scholar

110 No information about the nature of the alterations has come to light, although a payment of 16s. was made to a carpenter sometime after 6 February 1786.Google Scholar

111 Sarah Wesley to Sally Wesley, letter of 13 May 1786; summarized in SWSB, 130.Google Scholar

112 John Wesley to Charles snr., letter of 6 April 1786; summarized in SWSB, 130. Of course, John might have been referring to the conclusion of that particular year's series of concerts, but on the date of his letter, two of the seven performances were yet to take place. It seems more likely that the ‘end’ was the finish of the family concerts endeavour overall.Google Scholar

113 MARC DDCW 9/15.Google Scholar

114 Philip Olleson, Samuel Wesley, the Man and his Music (Woodbridge, 2003), 31.Google Scholar

115 Samuel Wesley to Sarah Gwynne Wesley, letter of 1 April 1806; summarized in SWSB, 217.Google Scholar

116 At least seven of Samuel's children with Sarah Suter survived.Google Scholar