The First Fleet Piano: Volume One

The First Fleet Piano: Volume One
Author: Geoffrey Lancaster
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 919
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1922144657

During the late eighteenth century, a musical–cultural phenomenon swept the globe. The English square piano—invented in the early 1760s by an entrepreneurial German guitar maker in London—not only became an indispensable part of social life, but also inspired the creation of an expressive and scintillating repertoire. Square pianos reinforced music as life’s counterpoint, and were played by royalty, by musicians of the highest calibre and by aspiring amateurs alike. On Sunday, 13 May 1787, a square piano departed from Portsmouth on board the Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet, bound for Botany Bay. Who made the First Fleet piano, and when was it made? Who owned it? Who played it, and who listened? What music did the instrument sound out, and within what contexts was its voice heard? What became of the First Fleet piano after its arrival on antipodean soil, and who played a part in the instrument’s subsequent history? Two extant instruments contend for the title ‘First Fleet piano’; which of these made the epic journey to Botany Bay in 1787–88? The First Fleet Piano: A Musician’s View answers these questions, and provides tantalising glimpses of social and cultural life both in Georgian England and in the early colony at Sydney Cove. The First Fleet piano is placed within the musical and social contexts for which it was created, and narratives of the individuals whose lives have been touched by the instrument are woven together into an account of the First Fleet piano’s conjunction with the forces of history. View ‘The First Fleet Piano: Volume Two Appendices’. Note: Volume 1 and 2 are sold as a set ($180 for both) and cannot be purchased separately.

Kitty Fisher

Kitty Fisher
Author: Joanne Major
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2022-12-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1399007009

‘Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it, not a penny was there in it, only ribbon round it.’ Generations of children have grown up knowing Kitty Fisher from the nursery rhyme, but who was she? Remembered as an eighteenth-century ‘celebrated’ courtesan and style icon, it is surprising to learn that Kitty’s career in the upper echelons of London’s sex industry was brief. For someone of her profession, Kitty had one great flaw: she fell in love too easily. Kitty Fisher managed her public relations and controlled her image with care. In a time when women’s choices were limited, she navigated her way to fame and fortune. Hers was a life filled equally with happiness and tragedy, one which left such an impact that the fascinating Kitty Fisher’s name still resonates today. She was the Georgian era’s most famous – and infamous – celebrity. This is more than just a biography of Kitty Fisher’s short, scandalous and action-packed life. It is also a social history of the period looking not just at Kitty but also the women who were her contemporaries, as well as the men who were drawn to their sides... and into their beds. In this meticulously researched, lively and enjoyable book we discover the real woman at the heart of Kitty Fisher’s enduring myth and legend.

I Saw Eternity the Other Night

I Saw Eternity the Other Night
Author: Timothy Day
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0241352193

The sound of the choir of King's College, Cambridge - its voices perfectly blended, its emotions restrained, its impact sublime - has become famous all over the world, and for many, the distillation of a particular kind of Englishness. This is especially so at Christmas time, with the broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, whose centenary is celebrated this year. How did this small band of men and boys in a famous fenland town in England come to sing in the extraordinary way they did in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? It has been widely assumed that the King's style essentially continues an English choral tradition inherited directly from the Middle Ages. In this original and illuminating book, Timothy Day shows that this could hardly be further from the truth. Until the 1930s, the singing at King's was full of high Victorian emotionalism, like that at many other English choral foundations well into the twentieth century. The choir's modern sound was brought about by two intertwined revolutions, one social and one musical. From 1928, singing with the trebles in place of the old lay clerks, the choir was fully made up of choral scholars - college men, reading for a degree. Under two exceptional directors of music - Boris Ord from 1929 and David Willcocks from 1958 - the style was transformed and the choir broadcast and recorded until it became the epitome of English choral singing, setting the benchmark for all other choral foundations either to imitate or to react against. Its style has now been taken over and adapted by classical performers who sing both sacred and secular music in secular settings all over the world with a precision inspired by the King's tradition. I Saw Eternity the Other Night investigates the timbres of voices, the enunciation of words, the use of vibrato. But the singing of all human beings, in whatever style, always reflects in profound and subtle ways their preoccupations and attitudes to life. These are the underlying themes explored by this book.

The Incendiary

The Incendiary
Author: Jessica Warner
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2011-03-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1551995751

In 1776 and 1777, during the American Revolution, a young Scot known only as John the Painter took his war to England by committing acts of terror in the dockyards of the mighty British navy. This is the first full-length biography of that brilliant but disturbed young man. His story offers chilling parallels to the present – and insights into why certain young men are driven to commit unspeakable crimes. Warner has written a book of history that reads like a picaresque novel, but always with a modern twist. Its hero travels to France and receives the blessing of the American envoy there. King George III offers a reward for his capture. Bow Street Runners are sent out inpursuit. Newspapers print sensational stories. A bill to suspend habeas corpus is rushed through Parliament and American privateers – the unlawful combatants of their day – are held without being charged. The Incendiary takes readers on a fascinating journey from Europe to colonial America and finally to the gallows at Portsmouth. In this atmospheric and deftly researched tale of a young man who tried to bring down a superpower, Warner has crafted a popular history with contemporary implications.

The Music Profession in Britain, 1780-1920

The Music Profession in Britain, 1780-1920
Author: Rosemary Golding
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2018-03-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1351965743

Professionalisation was a key feature of the changing nature of work and society in the nineteenth century, with formal accreditation, registration and organisation becoming increasingly common. Trades and occupations sought protection and improved status via alignment with the professions: an attempt to impose order and standards amid rapid social change, urbanisation and technological development. The structures and expectations governing the music profession were no exception, and were central to changing perceptions of musicians and music itself during the long nineteenth century. The central themes of status and identity run throughout this book, charting ways in which the music profession engaged with its place in society. Contributors investigate the ways in which musicians viewed their own identities, public perceptions of the working musician, the statuses of different sectors of the profession and attempts to manipulate both status and identity. Ten chapters examine a range of sectors of the music profession, from publishers and performers to teachers and military musicians, and overall themes include class, gender and formal accreditation. The chapters demonstrate the wide range of sectors within the music profession, the different ways in which these took on status and identity, and the unique position of professional musicians both to adopt and to challenge social norms.

Unjust Enrichment and Contract

Unjust Enrichment and Contract
Author: Tariq Baloch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2009-03-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1847314988

This book examines the role of unjust enrichment in the contractual context, defined as contracts which are (a) terminated for breach, or (b) subsisting, or (c) unenforceable. The book makes three claims in relation to the orthodox common law account of restitution (founded on unjust enrichment) in the contractual context. Firstly, the orthodox account correctly proceeds on the basis that the restitutionary claim in the contractual context is founded on an independent cause of action in unjust enrichment, rather than some equitable notion of unconscientiousness or the law of contract. Secondly, the book departs from the orthodox account by rejecting the unjust factors approach and endorsing the absence of basis approach for the law of unjust enrichment. Finally, the book argues that the right to restitution in the contractual context should be determined by the conditionality of the transfer of the benefit rather than a requirement such as the termination of the contract, as the orthodox account dictates. To that end the book proposes the following model, under which the right to restitution in the contractual context is determined by the resolution of the following two questions: (1) Was the transfer of the benefit (eg of money or services) conditional? (2) Was there a qualifying failure of condition? A condition can be, and often is, the other contracting party's counter-performance, but it may also be an event not promised by either party. What qualifies as a failure of condition depends on the type of contract in question. This book identifies two types of contracts, namely those which are apportioned (eg instalment contracts) and those which are unapportioned. It is only in relation to the latter that termination is required. It is a particular strength of the book that it is underpinned by detailed and original historical analysis which makes a novel and distinct contribution to the history of the laws of unjust enrichment and contract. 'Dr Baloch has produced the definitive study of the inter-relationship between contract and unjust enrichment. This has been achieved by carefully considering the historical roots of our common law, and how this is to be understood in its best light in the modern era.' Robert H Stevens, University College, London. 'Dr Baloch's exploration of the boundary between contractual and unjust enrichment liability in the 17th to 19th centuries has important things to say about the history of ideas of 'contract' in this period.' Mike Macnair, Oxford University. 'This is an innovative and rigorous book which engages with one of the most difficult areas in the law of unjust enrichment, namely the relationship between the law of unjust enrichment and the law of contract. Baloch roots his treatment of the modern law in its history and the historical analysis throughout is very careful and well grounded in the primary sources.' David Ibbetson, Cambridge University. 'This is a valuable book, thoughtful and well researched. It is concerned to build a model that fits comfortably with the cases, and its focus is on the work of modern commentators. Those concerned with the relationship of contract and the law of restitution whether at a theoretical level or in practice will benefit by careful study of what Dr Baloch has to say, whether or not they agree with it.' Jack Beatson, Royal Courts of Justice, 14 February 2009 (From the foreword)

The Anatomist Anatomis'd

The Anatomist Anatomis'd
Author: Andrew Cunningham
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 763
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351894943

The eighteenth-century practitioners of anatomy saw their own period as 'the perfection of anatomy'. This book looks at the investigation of anatomy in the 'long' eighteenth century in disciplinary terms. This means looking in a novel way not only at the practical aspects of anatomizing but also at questions of how one became an anatomist, where and how the discipline was practised, what the point was of its practice, what counted as sub-disciplines of anatomy, and the nature of arguments over anatomical facts and priority of discovery. In particular pathology, generation and birth, and comparative anatomy are shown to have been linked together as sub-disciplines of anatomy. At first sight anatomy seems the most long-lived and stable of medical disciplines, from Galen and Vesalius to the present. But Cunningham argues that anatomy was, like so many other areas of knowledge, changed irrevocably around the end of the eighteenth century, with the creation of new disciplines, new forms of knowledge and new ways of investigation. The 'long' eighteenth century, therefore, was not only the highpoint of anatomy but also the endpoint of old anatomy.