Charles Burney

Charles Burney FRS (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist and book donor to the British Museum. He was a close friend and supporter of Joseph Haydn and other composers.

Charles Burney was born at Raven Street, Shrewsbury, the fourth of six children of James Macburney (1678–1749), a musician, dancer and portrait painter, and his second wife Ann (née Cooper, c. 1690–1775). In childhood he and a brother Richard (1723–1792) were for unknown reasons sent to the care of a "Nurse Ball" at nearby Condover, where they lived until 1739. He began formal education at Shrewsbury School in 1737 and was later sent in 1739 to The King's School, Chester, where his father then lived and worked. His first music master was a Mr Baker, the cathedral organist, and a pupil of John Blow. Returning to Shrewsbury at the age of 15, Burney continued his musical studies for three years under his half-brother, James Burney, organist of St Mary's Church, and was then sent to London as a pupil of Thomas Arne for three years.

Burney wrote some music for Arne's Alfred, which was produced at Drury Lane Theatre on 30 March 1745. In 1749 he was appointed organist of St Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street, with a salary of £30 a year. According to the voting book, he secured the post against six other candidates with votes 50 to 4. He was also engaged to take the harpsichord in the "New Concerts" then recently established at the King's Arms, Cornhill. It was for his health that he went in 1751 to Lynn Regis in Norfolk, where he was elected organist, with an annual salary of £100. He lived there for nine years. During that time he began to entertain the idea of writing a general history of music. His Ode for St Cecilia's Day was performed at Ranelagh Gardens in 1759. In 1760 he returned to London in good health and with a young family. His eldest child, Esther, a girl of eight, surprised the public with her achievements as a harpsichord player. The concertos for harpsichord which Burney published soon after his return to London were much admired. In 1766 he produced, at Drury Lane, a translation and adaptation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's opera Le Devin du village, under the title of The Cunning Man.

In 1749, while working as an organist and harpsichordist in London, Charles married Esther Sleepe (c.1725–1762). The couple had six children: Esther or Hetty, who later became Mrs Burney on marrying her cousin Charles Rousseau Burney, the explorer James Burney, the celebrated writer Frances Burney (often called Fanny), the correspondent Susan (Susy), Charlotte (later Mrs Francis), and Charles Burney, a classicist and school headmaster.

As vividly recorded by Fanny, the family moved in a lively cultural circle in London, which included the portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the composers Harriet Wainwright and Joseph Haydn, the essayist Edmund Burke and the MP for Southwark Henry Thrale, whose wife Hester Thrale was a close friend of Fanny's.

Charles's first wife Esther died in 1761. In 1767 he was married a second time, to Elizabeth Allen (Mrs Stephen Allen) of Lynn. From this union he had a son, Richard Thomas, and a daughter, Sarah Harriet Burney, who became a novelist.

The University of Oxford honoured Burney, on 23 June 1769, with the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music, and his own work was performed. This consisted of an anthem, with an overture, solos, recitatives and choruses, accompanied by instruments, besides a vocal anthem in eight parts, which was not performed. In 1769 he published An essay towards a history of the principal comets that have appeared since 1742. Amidst his various professional avocations, Burney never lost sight of his main project, his History of Music. He decided to travel abroad and collect materials that could not be found in Britain. He left London in June 1770, carrying numerous letters of introduction, and travelled to Paris, Geneva, Turin, Milan, Padua, Venice, Bologna (where he met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father), Florence, Rome and Naples. The results of his observations were published in a well-received book, The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771). In July 1772 Burney again visited the continent to do further research, and on his return to London published an account of his tour under the title The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces (1773). In 1773 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1776 appeared the first volume (in quarto) of Burney's long-projected History of Music. In 1782 Burney published his second volume; and in 1789 the third and fourth. The History of Music was generally well received, although criticized by Forkel in Germany and by the Spanish ex-Jesuit, Requeno, who in his Saggj sul Ristabilimento dell' Arte Armonica de' Greci e Romani Canton (Parma, 1798) attacked Burney's account of ancient Greek music and called him lo scompigliato Burney (the confused Burney). The fourth volume covers the birth and development of opera and the musical scene in England in Burney's time. Burney's first tour was translated into German by Christoph Daniel Ebeling, and printed at Hamburg in 1772. His second tour, translated into German by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, was published at Hamburg in 1773. A Dutch translation of his second tour, with notes by J. W. Lustig, organist at Groningen, was published there in 1786. The Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients, in the first volume of Burney's History, was translated into German by Johann Joachim Eschenburg, and printed at Leipzig, 1781. Burney derived much aid from the first two volumes of Padre Martini's very learned Storia della Musica (Bologna, 1757–1770).