Chelveston 2025

Our annual Friends of  Square Pianos gatherings, originally held at Finchcocks, have always been well-supported, and since we moved to my home village ofChelveston in Northamptonshire we have enjoyed full houses.  On Saturday April 26th sixty of us came together for a day of friendship and music.  

The party was informal, with plenty of opportunity to make friends, play the instuments, and enjoy tea-breaks and a buffet lunch.

Thank you to all who came to make this such an enjoyable party - a day of friendship and music.  One of the many highlights was one of the first performances of 'Ode to Pity', a poem written early in Jane Austen's life, and now set to music in the style of the late eighteenth century by Donna McKevitt.  It was truly delightful.  Here we see the lovely Penelope Appleyard, whose idea this was, singing to the accompaniment played by David Wright.  The piano is by Christopher Ganer c. 1787 and must be very similar to the Ganer piano owned by Jane at Steventon, where her father was vicar.  The parsonage was sold in 1801, and the piano is mentioned in the sale notice in the Reading Mercury.  We know from one of her letters that Jane was sad to see it go; it would be nearly ten years before she had another piano of her own.

This piano is the one featured in the 2008 dramatisation of 'Sense & Sensibility', where it is played by Marianne Dashwood (Charity Wakefield).  Thanks to Keith Howard for bringing this newly-restored piano to the party. 

Several of our Friends very kindly contributed to an assembly of  over twnenty early keyboard insurments - original and reproduction.  We see a few of them in the above picture - clockwise from bottom left:  Square piano by John Broadwod, an early example 1787; an original 1735 spinet (N°1460) by Thomas Hitchcock; a new-build spinet by Steve Garfirth, based on the famous 1711 Keene & Brackley); a 20-the century clavicytherium under restoration, new soundboard decorated by James Hawksley; a beautiful harpsichord By Kilström of Sweden, owned and played by David Wright; the famous '1664' (actually 1704) spinet by Edward Blunt); and the 'Pink Ribbon' Ganer c. 1787 by Christopher Ganer.

We were pleased to welcome Sophie Yates, who will be using the 1704 Blunt spinet for a Chandos recording of English music later in the year.  She gave us a foretaste, with Bill (her husband) doing  a splendid j0b as page-turner.  

Henry Purcell's beautiful 'Evening Hymn' has special memories for many of us, and we were privileged to hear an arrangement as a duet by Angie, Penny, and David.

David closed the musical elements of the programme with a stunning performance of 'Vo Far Guerra' from Handel's 1711 opera Rinaldo.  This battle-scene is marked 'Cembalo ad lib', for which the performer and composer William Babell wrote a full cadenzq, possibly a close rendition of what he heard Handel himself play night after night at the Hay Market, where Babell was first violinist for the production.  The critic Charles Burney commented that:

"Babell acquired great celebrity by wire-drawing the favourite songs of the opera of Rinaldo, and others of the same period, into showy and brilliant lessons, which by mere rapidity of finger-playing in single sounds, without the assistance of taste, expression, harmony or modulation, enabled the performer to astonish ignorance, and acquire the reputation of a great player at small expence... Mr Babel... at once gratifies idleness and vanity."

Well, I enjoyed it, and my ears are better now.  Thanks to David for these notes.  

Nice harpsichord by the way - after Ruckers 'Petit Ravalement' by Kilström of Sweden.

There was much more - these are just some of the highlights.

A lovely day - thanks to all friends who made it such a memorable party. We do hope to meet again next year, when the date we have in mind will be April 25th.

One of our Friends very kindly made a short video of the 2023 party.  Please click   HERE  to view it.

Planning for the 2026 party, to be held on Saturday April 25  is now in hand; some of the instruments will be here on the Friday, when there will be an evening meal in a local pub.  Do please let me know if you would provisionally like to book a place - we have quite a few names already, and are expecting a full house.