Last updated 27 November 2007
Cumulative entries to last date: 335
What’s New Archives
for the Concertina Library, 2007
Directory
27 November 2007
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Wheatstone, His Sighing Reed, and The Great Regondi
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Presented by Bernard Richardson
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BBC programme on the history and music of the English concertina,
focusing on its inventor Sir Charles Wheatstone and the first concertina virtuoso Giulio Regondi.
In addition to the presenter, Bernard Richardson, the program features (in order of appearance)
Allan Atlas, Neil Wayne, Brian Bowers, Alistair Anderson, Douglas Rogers, Jenny Cox, and Dave Townsend.
BBC Radio4 programme broadcast 27 November 2007.
Includes links to audio files of the entire programme in WMA format and MP3 format.
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Posted 27 November 2007
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15 November 2007
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Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930
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by Dan Worrall
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Although the Irish are known for their long folk memory, the story of how of concertina
playing began there has been largely lost; it is often tagged to a threadbare tale of
mariners bringing them up the Shannon estuary to Clare. This paper reconstructs its history
by using period accounts from newspapers, books and family histories to document the social
gatherings where it was played, and the vendors who sold it. The Anglo-German concertina was
enormously popular all across Ireland during its heyday, amongst people of nearly all social and
economic groups.
The concertina is a much-favored instrument in County Clare, Ireland, and
a few players there bridge the gap in time between the instrument’s heyday in the
late nineteenth/early twentieth century and the current revival, which began in the 1970s.
Its later concentration in Clare was not a result of how it arrived, but
of local cultural and economic factors that aided its barest survival there while it was
completely dropped—and all but forgotten—elsewhere in the country.
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Posted 15 November 2007
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The Victorian Concertina: Some Issues Relating to Performance
- by Allan W. Atlas
- Present-day players of the ‘English’ concertina must make a number
of important decisions when delving into and performing the large repertory of
art music that was written for the instrument in Victorian England. These
decisions become especially critical for those who would perform the music in a
manner that may at least approximate the way it may have sounded in the nineteenth
century.
Originally published in Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 3/2 (2006),
30 pages including photographs and musical examples.
Briefly, there are three basic decisions to be made. The first
two concern the choice of instrument: (1) modern instrument or period (Victorian)
instrument; and (2) if the latter, what kind of instrument in terms of reeds (type
of metal), tuning, structure of the bellows and number of buttons. The third
decision, on the other hand, has to do with a fundamental question of playing
technique: should we use three or four fingers of each hand?
- Posted 15 November 2007
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15 April 2007
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A Brief History of the Anglo Concertina in the United States
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by Dan Worrall
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In the United States the Anglo-German concertina was very popular during the middle and late
nineteenth century, but by the early twentieth century it had all but vanished from American popular
culture, becoming only a Hollywood symbol of “the old days”.
After the revival of interest in traditional music and in concertinas from the 1960s the Anglo has
once again had some popularity in the United States, but without connection to any tradition of its
earlier widespread use in America. This paper attempts to reconstruct a basic history
of the Anglo concertina in the U.S. by using nineteenth-century tutors, newspaper mentions,
anecdotes from family histories, and archival photographs.
Topics discussed include the early use of German concertinas in the Eastern U.S.,
the use of Anglo concertinas by Mormon and other western pioneers, use during the War Between the States,
use by African-Americans, use in nautical contexts, use by immigrant and other ethnic groups, and
use by the American branch of the Salvation Army. Some previously unpublished photographs are included.
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Posted 15 April 2007
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Instructions for the Salvation Army Concertina (1888)
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by Herbert H. Booth
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The earliest known concertina tutor for the Salvation Army, compiled by Herbert H. Booth,
son of Salvation Army founder William Booth. This booklet is devoted exclusively to chording
on the Anglo concertina. The title’s phrase “Salvation Army concertina” refers to
an Ab/Eb concertina with 26 keys, the Salvation Army’s standard issue into the
twentieth century. The tutor provides I-IV-V chords (the “three chord trick”) for a number
of keys; the chords are shown as played with two hands without the melody,
presumably as an accompaniment for singing or for other instruments playing melody.
(Scan from Stephen Chambers, description by Randall C. Merris.)
London: Published by The Salvation Army Bookstores, 8 and 9, Paternoster Square, E.C., 1888.
Price 3d. 16pp. including covers.
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Posted 15 April 2007
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» read full document in pdf (or right-click to download)
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Howe’s Western German Concertina School (1879)
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by Elias Howe, Jr.
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Elias Howe (1820–1895) was a prolific nineteenth century American publisher of
sheet music and tutors for a wide variety of popular instruments. This book has
a brief introduction to the German concertina keyed in C and G, but focuses on a
collection of American popular and patriotic songs, dances, operatic and Irish airs,
hymns, and Civil War era melodies. The hymns are largely taken from the shape note
tradition. Concertina tablature in the form of numbered buttons is found throughout.
The settings are typically simple, unaccompanied melodies; Howe seems to have simply
taken melodies from his vast collection of American tunes and transcribed them to
concertina-friendly keys.
Boston: Published and Sold by Elias Howe, 88 Court Street, 1879.
48pp. including covers.
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Posted 15 April 2007
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Howe’s Eclectic School for the Concertina (1879)
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by Elias Howe, Jr.
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Elias Howe (1820–1895) was a prolific nineteenth century publisher of sheet
music and tutors for a wide variety of popular instruments of his day. This book,
which is significantly lengthier than his “Western German Concertina School” tutor,
has a slightly more detailed introduction to playing the German concertina. This
introduction is written in both English and German, indicating that at least some
German-Americans were using the two row Anglo-German instrument. Like the “Western”
collection, it contains American popular and patriotic songs, dances, operatic and
Irish airs, hymns, and Civil War era melodies. Concertina tablature, in the form of
numbered buttons for an instrument keyed in C and G, is found throughout.
Boston: Published and Sold by Elias Howe, 88 Court Street, 1879.
In English and partly in German. 80pp. including covers.
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Posted 15 April 2007
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» read full document in pdf (or right-click to download)
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Sedgwick’s Improved and Complete Instructions for the German Concertina (1893)
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by Alfred B. Sedgwick
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Alfred Blair Sedgwick (1821–1878) was an early music hall concertinist;
born in England, he migrated to the US ca. 1850. He much preferred the English system
over that of the German concertina, as his introductory notes to this tutor make clear,
but bowed to the popular preference for the latter instrument and prepared a number of
tutors for it. This tutor, one of his later and more complete ones, contains a lengthy
introduction to musical notation, as well as instruction tailored to the German concertina
with a set of progressive exercises. The tunes which follow are generally more demanding
than those of Howe’s books, and have been thoughtfully adapted to the anglo. Many have
simple harmonies and a few are challenging, fully harmonic pieces requiring a full
two-handed chorded treatment (see, for example, “Dodworth’s Lancers”). The tutor also
contains some concertina duets. Concertina tablature, in the form of numbered buttons
for an instrument keyed in C and G, is found throughout.
Boston: Published by Oliver Ditson & Co., 277 Washington Street, 1893.
80pp. plus covers and 1-page unnumbered insert. “Preliminary Remarks” dated from
“Brooklyn, L.I., January, 1865.”
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Posted 15 April 2007
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26 March 2007
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The Cult of the English Concertina: a Chat with Miss Christine Hawkes
- by Norman Fraser
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Informative interview with Christine Hawkes who in 1907 had given successful concertina concerts
in the West End of London. Miss Hawkes has been “inundated with … shoals of letters from
people anxious to learn the concertina,” and she gives a number of practical tips on buying a
concertina and on practising. She recommends “the English concertina as patented by
Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1829,” … “as distinguished from the cheap German atrocities
with which Bank Holidays make us all too familiar.” Miss Hawkes “was lucky enough at the
beginning to come across a copy of Regondi’s ‘Concertina Exercises,’ but whether this
work is published now she does not know.”
Contributed by Stuart Eydmann.
First published in
Cassell's Magazine,
June 1908 to November 1908, pp. 159–161.
- Posted 26 March 2007
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21 March 2007
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Ladies in the Wheatstone Ledgers: the Gendered Concertina in Victorian England, 1835–1870
- by Allan W. Atlas
- This study looks at the 978 women for whom there are 1,769 transactions—about 12% of the
total—recorded in nine extant Wheatstone & Co. sales ledgers that list the firm’s day-to-day sales
from April 1835 to May 1870. It is in two parts: (1) an Introduction, which analyses the data presented
in the Inventory from a demographic-sociological point of view and places Wheatstone’s commerce
with women into the context of its business activity as a whole; and (2) the Inventory (with
three appendices), which lists every transaction for each of the 978 women, identifies as many of them
as possible, and offers a miscellany of comments about both the women and the transactions.
Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle v. 39 (2006). 239 pages.
Briefly,
the roster of Wheatstone’s female customers reads like a list of Victorian England’s rich-and-famous:
the Duchess of Wellington and 146 other members of the titled aristocracy (more than twice as many
as their male counterparts), the fabulously wealthy philanthropist Angela Burdett Coutts, members
of the landed gentry, and such mainstays of London’s musical life as the guitarist Madame R. Sidney
Pratten, the organist Elizabeth Mounsey, and the contralto Helen Charlotte Dolby, as well as a large
number of Professors of Concertina.
- Posted 21 March 2007
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Ms Mary Baker with Concertina, c. 1857
- Notes by Pat Shipman
- Mary Baker (d. 1882) seems to be the only woman named in the Wheatstone Concertina Ledgers (listed in
Allan W. Atlas, “Ladies in the Wheatstone Ledgers”) whom we can see with her concertina in hand, in a
daguerreotype dated c. 1857. Mary Baker’s brother (Samuel Baker) with his second wife explored central
Africa in search of the source of the Nile, and discovered Lake Albert in 1864, for which he was knighted in 1866.
As published in
PICA [Papers of the International Concertina Association], Vol. 3 (2006), pp. 36-37.
Better-quality colour photographs have been substituted for those originally published.
- Posted 21 March 2007
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