Hearing the Music
of Early New South Wales
Remembering and Creating Home
Many early immigrants to Australia were determined to maintain their connection with ‘home’ – as most still referred to the British Isles.
Whether it was the settler elite re-creating the balls and concerts they had experienced in England, or Australian-born children receiving their first piano or flute lessons, much of the music people played and heard was influenced by British practices.
Most of what we know about music making in the early colony comes from the rare objects that survive: volumes of sheet music bound by their owners, careful hand-copied tunes, diaries capturing a lifetime of musical habits, and time-worn musical instruments. In particular, the piano was the main means by which European musical taste spread across the country.
Those practising more traditional popular forms of music relied on memory and repetition to pass on their culture. As with many of the songs and dances of Australia’s First Peoples, the bulk of the oral music traditions of convicts, servants and labourers has been lost.
Regardless of the hardships of life in the settlement, a tune on the piano offered enjoyment and the appearance of gentility. By the 1850s, when this painting was made, many NSW families and their friends gathered around the piano to make music. Although the piano was usually played by women, here the artist’s 22-year-old son, Marcus Blake Brownrigg, is entertaining the family.
GRAPHIC
An evening at Yarra Cottage, Port Stephens, 1857
Maria Brownrigg, 1857
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, CANBERRA, PURCHASED 2017
Elizabeth Macarthur
Elizabeth Macarthur began lessons in Sydney in 1791 on what was then probably the only piano in Australia. Later the Macarthurs bought a larger, better quality instrument on which Elizabeth’s daughters received music lessons.
Playing the piano was considered by many to be an essential accomplishment for genteel young women. For some it was a duty, while for others, like Jane and Elizabeth, it could be a source of personal enjoyment.
‘I have begun a new study’
The childhood of Elizabeth Macarthur could have been that of a character from a Jane Austen novel. She was born in the town of Bridgerule, Devon, but after the death of her yeoman farmer father and her mother’s remarriage, the young Elizabeth divided her time between the homes of her stepfather, her grandfather and Reverend John Kingdon, the local vicar. Her marriage in 1788 to John Macarthur, an ambitious young military officer, was certainly not typical of an Austen heroine. The couple arrived in Australia on the Second Fleet in 1790, settled at Elizabeth Farm, Parramatta, in 1793, and together forged a dynasty of farmers, horticulturalists and politicians.
GRAPHIC (RIGHT)
[Reputedly Elizabeth Macarthur]
Artist unknown, c.1785-90
Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales,
Bequeathed by Sir William Dixson. 1952
OBJECT (LEFT)
Letter to Bridget Kingdon from Elizabeth Macarthur, Sydney, 7 March 1791
MITCHELL LIBRARY, STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Our new house is ornamented with a pianoforte of Mr. Worgan’s; he kindly means to leave it with me, and now, under his direction, I have begun a new study, but I fear without my master I shall not make any great proficiency. I am told, however, that I have done wonders in being able to play off God Save the King and Foot’s[sic] Minuet, besides that of reading the notes with great facility.
AUDIO
‘God save the King’
Composer unknown
Performed by Neal Peres Da Costa (piano), 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
AUDIO
‘Foote's minuet'
Composer unknown
Performed by Neal Peres Da Costa (piano), 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
AUSTRALIA’S FIRST PIANO
This day Mr. Wogan [sic] Surgeon of the Sirius dined on board, to whom I was introduced ... & recd an Invitation to dine wth him in the Sirius, & to hear his piano forte.
Arthur Bowes-Smyth, ‘A journal of a voyage from Portsmouth to NSW ..., 1787–1788–1789’, State Library of New South Wales
This piano is similar to the instrument brought to Australia on the First Fleet in 1788 by ship’s surgeon George Worgan (1757–1838), the son of eminent British organist and composer John Worgan. Before returning to England in 1791, Worgan gave the piano to his friend Elizabeth Macarthur, then aged 25, along with some lessons and tunes to get her started. It is curious that these were her first lessons, as many women with a similar background would have been trained in piano in childhood.
GRAPHIC (BACKGROUND)
The residence of John McArthur Esqre near Parramatta,
New South Wales
Joseph Lycett, from Views in Australia, or, New South Wales & Van Diemen’s Land delineated: in fifty views, J Souter, London, 1825, plate 13
CAROLINE SIMPSON COLLECTION, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
OBJECT (ABOVE)
Broadwood square piano
John Broadwood, London, 1788
SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Photo (c) Stuart Humphreys for MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
Captain Piper & his Servant Band
[Piper] keeps a band of Music and they have quadrilles every evening under the spacious verandas that surround the house. At the table there is a vast profusion of every luxury that the four quarters of the globe can supply …
LETTER FROM GEORGE BOYES TO MARY BOYES, 6 MAY 1824
Captain John Piper (1773–1851) arrived in Sydney in 1792 as an ensign with the NSW Corps. He swapped his military career for that of a public servant managing customs and excise, and made a fortune. In 1822, Piper and his wife, Mary Ann (1789–1872), moved into their sumptuous new harbourside home, ‘Henrietta Villa’, where they hosted dinners and balls for the colony’s elite.
Piper also maintained a band of convicts and former military bandsmen to play for these entertainments. And when he threw himself into the harbour in 1827, facing bankruptcy, it was members of his band who saved him from drowning. Chastened, Piper retired to his country estate in Bathurst, central NSW, where he made cheese, kept cows and sheep, and formed another private band of convict farm servants.
RIGHT
Captain John Piper
Artist Unknown, c.1815
STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.
BEQUEATHED BY D S MITCHELL, 1907
Mrs Macquarie's Cello
This violoncello was presented to Mary Ann Piper by Elizabeth Macquarie, wife of the outgoing governor Lachlan Macquarie, on the eve of the Macquaries’ departure from NSW. Neither Elizabeth nor Mary Ann played the cello. Elizabeth probably first acquired the instrument for the use of the musicians who played in her concerts at Government House, and it would later have been played by members of the Pipers’ band.
OBJECT (RIGHT)
Violoncello
Thomas Kennedy, London, 1814
MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW. CONSERVATION OF MRS MACQUARIE’S VIOLONCELLO GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE BALNAVES FOUNDATION
GRAPHIC (BELOW)
Mary Ann Piper and her children
Augustus Earle, c1826
MITCHELL LIBRARY, STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. PRESENTED BY MRS B DALE (NEE COX) & MR R H COX, GRANDCHILDREN OF JOHN PIPER, IN 1921
PLAYLIST ABOVE
‘La Dorset’ from The lancers quadrilles
Composed by Paolo Spagnoletti
Performed by James Tarbotton (violin), Janet Rang and Jacob Lawler (flutes), and Neal Peres Da Costa (piano), 2019
______
‘The harp that once thro’ Tara’s halls’
Composed by Thomas Moore
Performed by Jacqueline Ward (voice), Shaun Warden and James Tarbotton (violins), Sophie Funston (cello) and Neal Peres Da Costa (piano), 2019
______
‘If a body meet a body’
Composer unknown
Performed by Daniel Yeadon (cello), 2019
ALL SONGS RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
GRAPHIC (BACKGROUND)
View of Captain Piper’s naval villa ... (detail)
Joseph Lycett, from Views in Australia, or, New South Wales & Van Diemen’s Land delineated: in fifty views, J Souter, London, 1824–25, plate 6
CAROLINE SIMPSON COLLECTION, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
Fashions from Home
The band which once through Piper’s halls,
The soul of music shed;
No longer sounds through Piper’s walls,
As if that soul was fled.
The Australian, 22 June 1827
The Pipers’ library contained issues of The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions &c, an English monthly magazine featuring the latest trends in architecture, interior design, clothing and music. Such publications probably provided the Pipers with ideas for the design of their £10,000 luxury residence on what is now Point Piper. This magnificent home included a large ballroom with space for a grand piano and dozens of dancers. One of Sydney’s early architectural losses, ‘Henrietta Villa’ was demolished in the early 1850s.
LEFT
Evening dress
From The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions &c, R Ackermann, London, series 2, vol 7, 1819
CAROLINE SIMPSON LIBRARY & RESEARCH COLLECTION, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
‘THE INTERESTING MRS ABELL’*
My cold is rather worse for Thursday’s outings and so many parties going on next week I am fearful unless I nurse it I shall not be well enough to dance the first quadrille with you on Thursday next.
Betsy Abell to Captain Piper, undated, from Dear Fanny: women’s letters to and from New South Wales 1788–1857, chosen and introduced by Helen Heney, ANU Press, Canberra, 1985
Mrs Abell, born Betsy Balcombe, regularly attended the Pipers’ parties after her arrival in Sydney in 1824. She was a source of fascination to locals, having been befriended by the deposed French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte on the remote British-held island of St Helena. After Napoleon’s exile to the island in 1815, the Balcombes hosted him at their home, where the teenage Betsy sang and played for him. According to a family story, on Betsy’s departure for England, Napoleon gave her his beloved guitar, given to him by his sister Pauline Borghese. It was later brought to Australia.
* ‘The fashionable world’, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 1 July 1824.
GRAPHIC (ABOVE)
Napoléon à l’île Sainte Hélène: ‘Les demoiselles Balcombe’
Edouard-Auguste Villain, c1850s
MN-GRAND PALAIS (MUSÉE DES CHÂTEAUX DE MALMAISON ET DE BOIS-PRÉAU)
AUDIO
‘Ye banks and braes’ (said to be a favourite tune of Napoleon’s)
Tune attributed to Charles Miller
Performed by George Wills (guitar) and Daniel Morris (lute), 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
SCORE, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
OBJECT (BACKGROUND)
Napoleon’s guitar
Maker unknown, c1816
MORNINGTON PENINSULA SHIRE, VICTORIA. THE DAME MABEL BROOKS FAMILY RECORDS OF NAPOLEON. GIFT OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE, 2016
Learn More
Napoleon Bonaparte's Guitar, Museums of History NSW
Transporting Musical Culture
When a little farm we keep,
And have little girls and boys,
With little pigs and sheep,
To make a little noise, –
Oh, what happy merry days we’ll see!
‘WHEN A LITTLE FARM WE KEEP’, HANDWRITTEN PIANO ARRANGEMENT
'WARRAWANG’ MUSIC COLLECTION, STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Until 2004, ‘Warrawang’ homestead at Mount Lambie, near Lithgow, was home to the Murray family, and held the accumulated possessions of five generations dating back to the 18th century. Among these were the household goods that the first Murrays brought with them from their former home in south-west Scotland. These included family portraits and a large library, as well as a new square piano.
After arriving in Sydney in 1843, James and Wilhelmina Murray and their ten children journeyed on over the Blue Mountains to join their old friends the Maxwells at Lithgow. The two families shared a love of music: James Murray and his son both played the flute, and Captain William Maxwell was a violinist, while Wilhelmina Murray and her daughters played the piano. Both families also had collections of sheet music, which James and William shared by making manuscript copies of each other’s scores.
BACKGROUND
Watercolour of 'Warrawang'
G Kerrison, Early 20th century
COURTESY KERRY AND BRENDAN COLE - MURRAY COLLECTION
ABOVE
James Murray, aged 38
J Maxwell, 1836
COURTESY KERRY AND BRENDAN COLE - MURRAY COLLECTION
PHOTO © ROBERT BRUCE FOR MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
ABOVE
Oil Portrait of Wilhelmina Murray
Artist Unknown
COURTESY KERRY AND BRENDAN COLE - MURRAY COLLECTION
PHOTO © ROBERT BRUCE FOR SYDNEY LIVING MUSEUMS
James Murray (1798–1856), pictured above, and his two siblings were born in India to a Scottish father, Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Murray of the East India Company, and his Indian wife, Contity. Following Contity’s death, the Murrays returned to the family home, ‘Georgefield’, near Langholm in the south-west of Scotland. This portrait is a rare depiction of an Anglo-Indian man apparently confident in his social position in 19th-century Scotland.
GRAPHIC (ABOVE)
‘Drawing depicting the original Warrawang house’
Artist unknown, c. 1850s.
COURTESY KERRY AND BRENDEN COLE – MURRAY COLLECTION.
PHOTO © ROBERT BRUCE FOR MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
VIDEO
‘My love she’s but a lassie yet’ (tune found at ‘Warrawang’)
Traditional, arranged by Leopold Koželuch
Performed by Lorna Anderson (voice) and Concerto Caledonia, 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON AND CONCERTO CALEDONIA
SCORE, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
The Murray Piano
[‘Warrawang’] was originally acquired by their grandfather (James), who came there from Scotland in 1843. With him he brought oil paintings of himself and wife, and a Broadwood piano. The latter is still sound.
‘On old familiar tracks’, National Advocate (Bathurst), 11 March 1927.
One of the newer acquisitions that the Murrays brought with them to NSW was this Broadwood square piano, originally dispatched to them in Scotland from Broadwood’s London warehouse on 8 February 1837. Well over a hundred Broadwood pianos are recorded as having arrived in Australia by the mid-1840s. The ‘Warrawang’ piano is a compact mid‑priced instrument, much smaller than the Broadwood ‘grand’ that Governor and Mrs Macquarie brought with them from Scotland in 1809.
OBJECT (LEFT)
Piano made by Broadwood & Sons and vernacular piano stool with hand-embroidered seat
John Broadwood & Sons, 1837; stool maker unknown, 19th century
COURTESY KERRY AND BRENDEN COLE – MURRAY COLLECTION
PHOTO (C) STUART HUMPHREYS FOR MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
A Shared Collection
The ‘Warrawang’ music collection is a testament to the ongoing friendship of the Murray and Maxwell families, begun at home in rural Scotland and continued in a remote Australian farming district in the 1840s and 50s. Their shared musical tastes included traditional Scottish songs and dance tunes and later extended to such hits as ‘Les rats quadrille’. The Maxwells also owned a set of valuable deluxe London editions of violin sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli, an Italian maestro whose music was popular in Britain.
OBJECT (RIGHT)
‘Programme of the evenings [sic] musical performances at Warrawang’
Murray family, after 1844
STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
VIDEO
Trio sonata in A minor, Op 1 no 4
Composed by Arcangelo Corelli
Performed by Concerto Caledonia, 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON AND CONCERTO CALEDONIA
SCORE (ABOVE)
'Les rats quadrille'
G Redler
in Miss Marcia Charlotte Zouch volume of songs and music, circa 1830-1860
SCORE, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
AUDIO
‘Les rats quadrille’
Composed by G Redler
Performed by James Tarbotton (violin) and Luca Warburton (piano), 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
OBJECT (RIGHT)
‘The Warrawang quadrilles’ (cover)
Contains transcriptions of Scottish tunes possibly made by Wilhelmina Murray junior (1828–1903), ‘Warrawang’, c1840s
STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
OBJECT (ABOVE)
The Dowling songbook
Collection of sheet music dated 1818–40, purchased and compiled in Sydney by Lilias and Willoughby Dowling; bound in Sydney by Francis Ellard, c1840
MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
View the contents of the Dowling Songbook by clicking the image above
VIDEO
‘Light my heart with joy is bounding’
Composed by Carl Maria von Weber
Performed by Nyssa Milligan (voice) and Katrina Faulds (piano), 2017
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
SCORE, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
VIDEO
I love thee still
Composed by Jonathan Blewitt
Performed by James Doig (voice and piano), 2017
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
SCORE, MUSEUMS OF HISTORY NSW
AUSTRALIA’S EARLIEST BOUND MUSIC COLLECTION?
This collection of sheet music was bound for its owner, Lilias Dowling (1818–1869), in Sydney around 1840, and is possibly the earliest locally bound collection in Australia. The daughter of wealthy Sydney industrialist John Dickson, Lilias was aged just 15 when she married Willoughby Dowling in 1834.
The volume contains over 40 pieces of music, most purchased from Sydney music stores in the 1830s. It also contains some of Australia’s earliest surviving manuscript copies of songs, and the only known copy of Instructions in singing (c1826–30) by the London-based teacher, composer and publisher William Grosse. The many pencilled annotations that Lilias and her teachers made on the music offer a unique opportunity to re-create how this music might have sounded in an early Sydney drawing room.
Learn More
Songs and scandal uncovered: The Dowling Music Project, Museums of History NSW
Musical Education for Young Women
Required, a Finishing Governess and Companion for two Young Ladies, aged thirteen and fourteen, musical and vocal acquirements a chief consideration.
‘ADVERTISING’, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 26 OCTOBER 1842
The number of free settlers arriving in the colony increased rapidly in the 1830s, and many of the more affluent families looked to provide their daughters with a formal musical education. The wealthiest were educated at home by governesses. Others received music lessons at small private schools and academies, or from the growing number of professional music teachers, among whom the Irish musician William Vincent Wallace and his family were the most sought after.
Some of the personal sheet music collections of these young women, typically collected over several years, survive today, bound in albums. These volumes provide useful information about the training the girls received, and their musical tastes. Expensive to purchase, and hard to replace, sheet music was considered precious, and the volumes often exhibit careful repairs to their pages. The collections were frequently bound together at a time of change in the owner’s life, such as marriage.
GRAPHIC (ABOVE)
Mary Elizabeth Pye
Artist unknown, c1843
COURTESY OF THE SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIAN GENEALOGISTS 15/149
For more on Miss Pye, visit the Museums of History website
ABOVE
‘Wanted a governess’ by John Parry
Published by L Lavenu, London, c1843
The Governess
I know not a cure so good for the vapours,
As reading the ‘wants’ which appear in the Papers;
… here’s an example
‘wanted a governess’ …
JOHN PARRY, ‘WANTED A GOVERNESS’, L LAVENU, LONDON, c1843
‘Wanted a governess’ is a comic song from the 1840s on the subject of the unreasonable demands placed upon governesses. Well-to-do parents hired genteel, unmarried women to live in and provide their daughters with a comprehensive education, including the ‘gentle accomplishments’ of music, art, languages, literature and history. In addition to ‘the Harp and the Piano … With thorough bass, too, on the plan of Logier’, the song lists some of the more specialised areas the long‑suffering governess was expected to cover: ‘Heraldry … conchology … Use of the globes and cosmography!’
AUDIO
‘Wanted a governess’
Composed by John Parry
Performed by Joshua Knight (voice) and Luca Warburton (piano), 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
GRAPHIC (BACKGROUND)
William Vincent Wallace
George Endicott, c1843–50
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF IRELAND
A Prominent Teacher
This collection of sheet music below belonged to Mary Pye (1827–1910; portrait above), the granddaughter of former convict John Pye, who became a wealthy landowner in Parramatta. Bound for Mary, probably in the early 1840s, it is a valuable source of information about the musical curriculum taught by her piano teacher William Vincent Wallace (1812–1865). Wallace, a young Irish composer who lived in Sydney from 1836 to 1838, held piano classes at his musical academy in Bridge Street, following the group teaching methods advocated by Dublin-based pianist Johann Logier. Mary’s album contains five volumes of Logier’s keyboard method supplied to her by Wallace.
GRAPHIC
Sequel to the first companion to the chiroplast, consisting of instructive lessons fingered for the piano forte and arranged to be played if desired in concerts by J B Logier
Published by J Green, London, date unknown, 11th edn
COURTESY OF THE SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIAN GENEALOGISTS 2/55
AUDIO
Exercises from Sequel to the first companion to the chiroplast …
Composed by J B Logier
Performed by Luca Warburton (piano), 2019
RECORDED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
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We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we live and work. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.