The Practitioners of Musick

Since 1952, Fenton House in Hampstead, London has been home to one of the most important collections of early keyboard instruments in Europe. Cared for by the National Trust of Great Britain, the collection was assembled during the early decades of the twentieth century by Major George Henry Benton Fletcher, a man of extraordinary vision. Major Fletcher was an ardent advocate of the value of playing early music on period instruments. For a new catalogue compiled by Mimi S. Waitzman,  along with an accompanying CD of the Fletcher collection, the Practitioners of Musick supplied Charles Frederick Abel’s Overture  in B-flat Major (1759) which was played by Terence Charlston on a Shudi and Broadwood harpsichord of 1770.

In the predawn hours of February 29, 1704, a force of about three hundred French and Native allies launched a daring raid on the English settlement. A hundred and twelve men, women, and children were captured and taken on a three hundred mile forced march to Canada in harsh winter conditions.

Some of the captives were later redeemed and returned to Deerfield, but one third chose to remain among their French and Native captors.

The Practitioners were invited to provide text and music for a section of the 1704 Deerfield website, devoted to sacred and secular music in New France.

The Old Barracks Fife and Drum Corps, Trenton, New Jersey (photo courtesy of the Old Barracks Association)

The Old Barracks Fife and Drum Corps released, in 2010, a recording that includes marches found in the Caspar Schaffner manuscript, arranged and edited by Steve Hudak, for the Corps, of which he is the distinguished director. The CD, titled, “Guardian Angels” debuted the talents of the fifes and drums of the Old Barracks. But it offers more than just the familiar compilation of martial music drawn from the 17^th to the early 19^th centuries; it is unique in that many of the melodies recorded are extracted directly from original manuscripts of Caspar Schaffner (1767-1825) of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  The first manuscript volume is in the collection of the Practitioners of Musick.

The Practitioners of Musick contemplates a recording project highlighting the English and  German repertory found in the manuscript.

The Practitioners of Musick plan to perform and record many selections from a remarkable new source, a collection of sheet music published in London between 1790 and 1815, that was acquired by and bound for one of the members of the celebrated Calvert family of Maryland. Among the many felicities of the volume are keyboard arrangements of English and Scottish dance tunes.