Matthew Dubourg: EMS 16 June

[doversoul1]

Lucie Skeaping is joined by conductor Peter Whelan to explore the life and music of an extraordinary yet uncelebrated Irish musician. Matthew Dubourg was the leader of The Irish State Musick from the 1720s to the 1740s and was a great friend of Handel’s - possibly one of the main contributing factors for his visit for the premiere of "The Messiah". He was the most celebrated violinist of his day, a great fan of Irish traditional music and wrote some stunning pieces for the Dublin court.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061l8

uncelebrated: a polite way of saying not well known?

[Richard Barrett]

an extraordinary yet uncelebrated Irish musician.

Well for a start he wasn't Irish - he was born in London and went to Dublin in his early 20s. Also, the blurb doesn't mention what's probably his most well-known contribution to music -the ornamented versions of Corelli's op.5 which are very often used by performers of these works.

[MickyD]

One authentic Irishman from the 18th century is Turlough O'Carolan - somewhere buried in my shelves, I have a nice disc of his music performed by Andrew Lawrence-King and his Harp Consort.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Well for a start he wasn't Irish - he was born in London and went to Dublin in his early 20s. Also, the blurb doesn't mention what's probably his most well-known contribution to music -the ornamented versions of Corelli's op.5 which are very often used by performers of these works.

True, but his mother was said to be Irish apparently.

[edashtav]

What an enjoyable and informative programme that filled in a gap concerning a pupil of Geminiani who became his supporter when Geminiani fell on lean times. He was also a good friend to and imitator of Handel. Whilst Dubourg was clearly a violin virtuoso ( pace Jonathan Swift), his extant compositions seem as light as soufflés. He seems to have been a cheerful chap and I rather like this story:
"The Matthew Dubourg, just spoken of as having made his debut at Britton's, became afterwards music master to the Prince of Wales and Duke Cumberland, and the composer of State music in Ireland. Once [in 1742 ] when at Dublin leading the band, with Handel as conductor, it became his duty to play an ab libitum passage during a pause in the music. Wandering far away in abstract modulation, he at length had departed so far that he found it difficult to remember what the original key was. At last, however, he accomplished the cadence, and had arrived at the final shake, to the delight of the audience, when Handel shouted out, loud enough to heard all over the theatre, " Welcome home, welcome home, Mr. Dubourg!" [ taken from a report in the Northampton Mercury [1862] of a Lecture on the History of the Violin.]

Fascinatingly, Dubourg came back to London to die but his teacher Geminiani was to die in Dublin where he'd abased himself as a salesman of all things Italian, including poor copies of famous Italian paintings. Some kind souls subsequently moved FG's remains back to Lucca Cathedral in Italy.

If you want to supplement this programme, Peter Whelan ( Director of Irish Baroque) has created this Youtube introduction to Matthew Dubourg

https://youtu.be/VvjDRaXAgXI

[edashtav]

I think it was Matthew Dubourg's grandson, George D., who published a Treatise on the Violin in 1852. It included anecdotes.
Here's one that amused me and is timely given our dreary, wet June:

LITERARY MEMORANDA
APOLOGY FOR MATTHEW MARKET, A STREET FIDDLER.
Let not wrath against him gather—
Call him not a useless bore!
Would you not this dirty weather,
Have a scraper at your door ?
Such is he;—nay, more than that,
He's a Scraper and a Mat.
Dubourg on the Violin.

[ardcarp]