Benjamin Milgrove, the musical 'Toyman' and the 'Guittar' in Bath 1757-1790

Spring, M (2013) 'Benjamin Milgrove, the musical 'Toyman' and the 'Guittar' in Bath 1757-1790.' Early Music, 41 (2). pp. 317-329. ISSN 0306-1078

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/em/cat044

Abstract

Benjamin Milgrove’s 1762 Forty Lessons for One & Two Guittars, a copy of which has resurfaced recently, was composed in Bath, principally for Milgrove’s newly opened music shop in Stall Street. For much of the 1760s and 70s Benjamin Milgrove (1731–1808) also owned the principal music business in Bath, a business that he then developed into a successful Bath ‘toy-shop’. He was also active as a performer, for example in the city band that played in the Pump Rooms and Assembly Rooms, as well as being a teacher and composer. This article provides new information about Milgrove, examines the contents of the Forty Lessons, places his book in the context of musical life in Bath, and considers it in relation to the other tutors available during the period in which the wire-strung ‘guittar’ was popular. It considers the vogue for the guittar in Bath from the 1750s to the 1780s, through the newspapers that advertised the instrument and its music, and traces the development of Milgrove’s music business and the several moves of premises he made before settling at no.4 Bond Street in 1778.

Item Type: Article
Note:

Also delivered as a paper at the twenty-eighth Annual Conference on Music in 18th Century Britain, November 2012 at the Foundling Museum, London

Divisions: Bath School of Music and Performing Arts
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cat044
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Date Deposited: 08 Jul 2013 10:38
Last Modified: 13 Oct 2022 10:57
URI / Page ID: https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/937
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