George Kennaway - John Gunn: Musician Scholar in Enlightenment Britain (Music in Britain, 1600-2000)

John Gunn

Music in Britain, 16002000

ISSN 2053-3217

Series Editors:

Byron Adams, Rachel Cowgill and Peter Holman

This series provides a forum for the best new work in the field of British music studies, placing music from the early seventeenth to the late twentieth centuries in its social, cultural, and historical contexts. Its approach is deliberately inclusive, covering immigrants and emigrants as well as native musicians, and explores Britains musical links both within and beyond Europe. The series celebrates the vitality and diversity of music-making across Britain in whatever form it took and wherever it was found, exploring its aesthetic dimensions alongside its meaning for contemporaries, its place in the global market, and its use in the promotion of political and social agendas.

Proposals or queries should be sent in the first instance to Professors Byron Adams, Rachel Cowgill, Peter Holman or Boydell & Brewer at the addresses shown below. All submissions will receive prompt and informed consideration.

Professor Byron Adams, Department of Music 061, University of California, Riverside, CA 925210325 email: byronadams@earthlink.net

Professor Rachel Cowgill, Department of Music, University of York Heslington, York, YO10 5DD email: rachel.cowgill@york.ac.uk

Emeritus Professor Peter Holman MBE, 119 Maldon Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 3AX email: peter@parley.org.uk

Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF email: editorial@boydell.co.uk

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of this volume.

John Gunn

Musician Scholar in Enlightenment Britain

George Kennaway

THE BOYDELL PRESS

George Kennaway 2021

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The right of George Kennaway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2021

The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 978 1 78327 641 7 (hardback)

ISBN 978 1 80010 370 2 (ePUB)

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.

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website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate

Cover illustration from John Gunns Theory and Practice of Fingering the Violoncello, generously supplied by Jonathan Frank of the Library of the Royal College of Music, London from their copy of the 2nd edition (1800), Reference Stack D552

To Anne-Marie

Illustrations

FIGURES

1: John Gunns burial record

2: John Gunns baptismal registration

3: John Humes map of estates near Golspie

4: Detail from John Ainslie, Old and New Town of Edinburgh and Leith with the proposed docks (1804)

5: St Giles, Camberwell, in 1825

6: Spencer-Stanhope family with their music teacher

7: From John Gunns letter to Margaret Maclean

Full credit details are provided in the captions to the images in the text. The author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

TABLE

1: Gunns tempo definitions

Music Examples

1: Diagram showing Gunns scale cycle

2: Gunns and Hardys versions of The Lass o Paties Mill

3: Gunns and Corris versions of Che belli occhietti

4: Gunns and Corris versions of Pinky House

5: Gunns and Corris versions of The Broom of Cowdenknowes

6: Roslin Castle, versions from Flute (Art) and Airs

7: She rose and let me in, versions from Flute (Art) and Airs

8: Sciendi propizia, concluding bars

9: Holdens sequence of sevenths

10: Possible reconstruction of Gunns method for sequences of sevenths

11: Duports arpeggio variants

12: Gunns arpeggio variants

13: Gunn, final chords

14: Thumb position bariolage

15: Eleventh chords with examples in high positions

16: Thumb position suspensions

17: Series of sevenths in Essay (Piano)

Acknowledgements

I presented material on Gunn at the 2010 Musica Scotica conference at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, at the University of Leeds, and while coaching for the University of Oxfords research project Transforming 19C HIP (c19hip.web.ox.ac.uk/home). I have benefited from speaking about Gunn at the Royal Musical Associations 2020 conference, at a conference organised by the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and at the University of Huddersfields 2020 research seminars. My thanks go to all those institutions for these opportunities and for the stimulating responses and suggestions that followed. Gunn himself often offers to guide his reader through a confusing maze. Many individuals have greatly helped my own wanderings. To Philip Compton, archivist at Castle Ashby, Northampton, I owe a particularly large debt of gratitude for having provided me with photographs of Gunns surviving correspondence with Margaret Maclean Clephane (later Compton), speedily, free of charge, and with minimal conditions.

I also wish to thank other archivists, curators, and institutions: Michael Hardy of Barnsleys Arts, Museums and Archives Service; Cambridge University Library; Manchester Central Library Special Collections; Sandra Heise, Curator of Historical Collections, Science and Arts Museum, Dublin; and Sarah Dallman of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Other individuals shared their own research in fields often distant from mine: Lisandro Abadie, Ann van Allen-Russell, Masako Art, Simon Chadwick, Dr John Cranmer, Gillebride Mac IlleMhaoil, Prof. David Irving, Dr Jennifer Nex, Dr Martin Pickard, Keith Sanger, Dr Katherine Butler Schofield, Prof. Nicholas Thomas, and Prof. Beverley Wilcox. Prof. Philip Olleson made invaluable suggestions for the presentation of Gunns letters. Members of the Facebook group Historical Performance Research, which I founded in 2011, also responded to my occasional pleas for information. Social media are problematic to cite as specific references, but they play an increasingly large part in research, especially when other avenues prove unproductive.

John Gunn has been a member of my household for some years, and I am grateful to Anne-Marie Stordiau van Egmond for welcoming him. Ruth Milsom was an invaluable proof-reader of the draft manuscript, and Ingalo Thomson was a thorough and stimulating editor of the text. Mistakes and oversights are inevitable, and of course my own.

List of John Gunns Publications