Hearing the Music
of Early New South Wales
Scenes that are Brightest: Sydney House Music of the 1840s and 1850s
Image Credit: Conrad Martens | Elizabeth Bay House | c.1848 | Elizabeth Bay House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Elizabeth Bay House
12 February 2023
Presented by Museums of History NSW and the Hearing the Music of Early NSW 1788-1860 project
This concert’s selection recreates a typical household entertainment as might have been ‘got up’ by musical members and guests of ‘gentry’ and merchant families who resided in Sydney in the 1840s and 1850s. It consists of popular theatrical and drawing-room songs, dances, and piano music. All the pieces chosen were performed, published, or popularly regarded in Sydney during two important decades in the city’s history, the economically depressed 1840s, and the marvellous 1850s, with the discovery of gold and a boom in immigration.
Image Credit: © Meagan Evans, MHNSW
