Charles Avison’s connections

Abstract

This new offering on the Newcastle-based composer, Charles Avison, has certainly been a long time in the coming. I originally became aware of this project around five years ago when I had the opportunity to read a sample chapter. What struck me then was just how dated the research was. The editors were likewise clearly aware of this issue, as they acknowledge the recent advances in our knowledge of Avison and his role in British cultural life. In the preface, they recognize that as ‘more information on Avison’s life has come to light … it has become obvious that his connections with the wider world were more extensive than had previously been thought’ (p.ix). The chapter I read has quite rightly been discarded from this offering and the work updated. As someone who is actively involved in researching the history of music production in 18th-century Britain, it has become clear to me just how important and influential Avison was. Evidence also suggests that he was well known beyond musical circles, perhaps even more so than his famous contemporaries William Boyce and Thomas Arne. Much of Avison’s notoriety was undoubtedly due to the attack on him and his music by the Oxford-based academic, William Hayes, brought about through Avison’s publication of his important treatise, An Essay on Musical Expression (1752). If anything, the dispute appears to have boosted Avison’s reputation as a composer, evidence of which can be seen in the success of his first musical works issued in the dispute’s wake, namely the 1755 op.4 concerti grossi. It has come to the point that I expect to come across Avison, whether researching the musical life of Durham, Spalding, Scotland, Cornwall, Kent or even British India, and new information on him is still coming to light on a fairly regular basis. As such, this project is somewhat premature as, even before this book was published, some of the research had already been superseded.