Private Concerts on Land and Water: The Musical Activities of the Sharp Family, c.1750–c. 1790

Abstract

Hitherto there have only been glimpses into the musical activities of William, James and Granville Sharp in London during the second half of the eighteenth century. These have been afforded by Prince Hoare's Memoirs of Granville Sharp, William Shield's anecdotal review of Granville's A Short Introduction to Vocal Music, the brothers' own catalogue of their music and the Leigh and Sotheby Sale Catalogue of 1814 which marked that music's dispersal, and, more recently, by the publication of the memoirs of R.J.S. Stevens who sang as a treble at the Sharps' concerts in 1772. From these sources it transpired that the three Sharps were capable amateur musicians who hosted private concerts of sacred music in their homes, and that at different times many of the leading professional musicians of the period either played or sang on one of Sharps' vessels on the Thames. These shadowy images gained bodily form in 1978 when the National Portrait Gallery acquired on indefinite loan ‘The Sharp Family’ by Johann Zoffany, a portrait which revealed that the three brothers were but part of a larger musical family.