The Dublin Musical Scene 1749–50 and its Background

Abstract

The musical season in Dublin which occurred at the exact mid-point of the eighteenth century was initiated on Monday, 11 September with an open-air performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks at Marlborough Bowling Green. Unlike on the occasion of the first performance five months previously in London, there is no evidence that the gentlemen (who paid one shilling entrance) and their consorts (admitted free) were disappointed by a failure of the ‘Grand Fire-work between the Acts’. Two days later, on Wednesday, 13 September, a second performance was arranged by Dr Mosse in the New Gardens in Great Britain Street as a benefit for the first-ever Lying-in Hospital, which he had opened in 1745. There were two further performances of Mr Handel's popular entertainment before the onset of autumn brought an end to the summer series of open-air concerts; and on Friday, 22 September, the winter season began with a performance of The Beggar's Opera at the Theatre in Smock Alley, where Thomas Sheridan had assembled ‘the best Band of Instrumental Performers ever heard in this Kingdom’. In spite of criticism that Sheridan had ‘struck woeful bargains [with] the Musical Tribe’, the Smock Alley Theatre was entering the second season that featured 22 instrumentalists, 6 principal singers, and two distinguished leaders in the persons of Signor Pasquali and Mr Lampe. Meanwhile, Mr Dubourg, Master of the King's Music in Ireland, and Miss Oldmixon, the popular oratorio soprano were ‘waiting for the first fair wind’ to come to Dublin; and it was rumoured that ‘Mr Handel is coming over to entertain the town this season’. The 1749–50 season, so auspiciously inaugurated, has been chosen for special attention because it was particularly rich and varied, is comparatively well documented, and it represents the culmination of the first phase of development under the more settled conditions after the Williamite war before the changes which led to the Act of Union in 1800 began to have a significant impact on the social life of the community. Before focusing attention on this particular season, a more general description of the musical background in eighteenth-century Dublin will help to place it in perspective.