Bloomsbury Baroque
By 1700, London was the largest city in Europe, and as such began to attract musicians from across the continent to entertain the swelling population. Exclusive venues such as Hickford’s Long Room in Soho ran subscription concerts for the nobility, and the much copied Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens provided entertainment during the season for all strata of society.
Handel, Bononcini, Geminiani, Pepusch and Draghi are just some of the famous composers who beat a path to London, bringing with them the new Italianate style of music, and some of the world’s most renowned performers of the time.
Meanwhile, the parish of Bloomsbury, just to the north of Holborn, was being developed as an elegant residential area, based on a grid plan surrounding leafy garden squares. The erection of of the grand edifices of Montagu House and Southampton (later Bedford) House cemented the area’s reputation as a fashionable place to live, and the later purchase of Montagu House to serve as the first British Museum ensured it would become synonymous with culture and learning.
Programmes
A Music Party at Montagu House
John, 2nd Duke of Montagu, was a renowned patron of the arts and appears in Marcellus Laroon’s painting of 1733 entitled “A Music Party at Montagu House”. Taking our inspiration from the rural past of the area, and the cultural world surrounding John Montagu, Bloomsbury Baroque presents a vocal and instrumental reimagining of the music party, drawing on the pastoral themes that were fashionable within music, poetry and the visual arts of the time.
Based near Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury Baroque is an ensemble of some of London’s finest historically informed performers. Performing on period instruments, our mission is to illustrate the cultural life of the eighteenth century through an exploration of the vast wealth of repertoire of that era.
Philippa Hyde, soprano
Diane Moore - baroque violin
William Summers - baroque flute and recorder
Ibrahim Aziz - bass viol
Yeo Yat-Soon - Harpsichord
