A MUSIC CATALOGUE AT KNOLE

Abstract

UNDER glass in the great hall at Knole, carefully protected alike from armoured ghosts and over-zealous tourists, lies a vellum-bound volume: 'A/Catalogue/of/Music/belonging/to His Grace/the/Duke of Dorset'. Having seen this exhibit first from outside the glass as a mere tourist, I returned two years later with the kind permission of Lord Sackville to view it close at hand. Although merely a list of composers and pieces, by imaginative extension it supplies a fascinating glimpse into the manorial tradition of music-making. No date appears upon the catalogue, leaving us to decide which of five Dukes of Dorset owned the music. At first glance this appears to be quite a problem, since the Sackville family in all periods has been active in the arts, and in our own time has furnished two poetesses and a distinguished music critic. As one scans the eighteenthcentury dukes, the most directly active in music was the second, Charles Sackville (1711-69, Duke I765-69). Although described by V. Sackville-West as a good-for-nothing ('Knole and the Sackvilles', p. i73) and in the Knole descriptive catalogue as somewhat feeble-minded, dissipated, and thoroughly unsatisfactory, this duke for a number of years before his succession devoted himself (and as much of his father's fortune as he could wheedle out of him) to producing opera in London. One glance inside the catalogue, however, eliminates this duke, for the repertory centres in a period after his death and a genre foreign to his tastes. Thus we turn to John Frederick Sackville (I745-99), third Duke of Dorset, K.G., to whom our catalogue undoubtedly refers. This vigorous and romantic figure, ambassador in I783-89 to the court of Versailles, was famous for his Paris entertainments, in particular his balls. As a handsome, wealthy bachelor he left a long trail of broken hearts on both sides of the Channel, and his name was linked even to that of Marie Antoinette, with whom he apparently carried on an intimate correspondence. On his return to England he devoted himself to the arts in long-term friendships with SirJoshua Reynolds, Romney and Gainsborough; to the last his account books show a payment of one hundred guineas for six pictures. He evidently kept at least a quartet of strings in constant residence at Knole; and I am informed by Mr. Edward Sackville-West that there is a tradition