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World-Class Percussionist Rocks Keswick Museum
Evelyn Glennie plays Keswick'c Musical Stones for BBC
Keswick Museum and Art Gallery's famous Musical Stones are back in the limelight after a recent visit by Britain's leading classical percussionist, Evelyn Glennie.
Although Evelyn has known
about the Stones for some years, this was her first visit to play the remarkable
instrument, and she was amazed by the scale and range of the fourteen foot long,
1-tonne 'slate xylophone'.
Built by Keswick stonemason Joseph Richardson in the 1830s & 1840s (taking
13 years to complete the set, the xylophone is made up of a five-octave range
of slate notes with accompanying steel notes, bells and drums. Billed as England's
first Rock Band, Richardson and his family toured the country and the Continent
to great acclaim. Queen Victoria was so amused that she commanded three performances
at Buckingham Palace during 1848!
157 years on, and ably accompanied by Jamie Barnes (Duty Officer at Keswick Museum) and Bobbie Millar (Leeds University), Evelyn demonstrated her virtuosity with a blistering performance which was recorded by BBC Radio 4.
Jamie Barnes commented: 'I have never heard anyone play the Stones like that before, with such volume and skill - it was a real treat.'
Evelyn's visit - which also included Brantwood and the Ruskin Museum at Coniston - will form part of a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the Victorian families who toured the world with their Musical Stones from Keswick. Evelyn also interviewed Jamie about Joseph Richardson and his family, their tours, the instrument itself and how hard it is to find the right slates.
The resulting radio programme will be called 'The World's First Rock Band' and will be presented by Evelyn Glennie. It will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday the 5th January 2006 at 11.30am.
Keswick Museum and Art Gallery is currently closed for the winter and will reopen with a full programme of exhibitions on the 1st April 2006.
All enquiries are to be directed to Jamie Barnes (017687) 73263 keswick.museum@allerdale.gov.uk
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Further Notes
During the nineteenth century, a new musical phenomenon began to attract the attention of audiences. Even Queen Victoria demanded to see for herself the instrument that was dubbed variously the Harmonicon, the stone xylophone, or the geological piano. These large musical instruments were made by performing families based in Cumbria - where, among the fells around Keswick, a naturally-occurring stone called hornfels could be found. These stones, they discovered, resonated when struck - and if they were chipped or sculpted, you could even tune them.
Families like the Richardsons, the Tills, and the Abrahams publicised themselves on posters as "rock bands", because their instruments were made of rock. Several examples of their instruments still survive in Cumbria, and in this programme, Britain's leading classical percussion player, Evelyn Glennie, will play some of them - as well as finding out about the people who made them. she will see the massive Richardson xylophone in Keswick, and play it. she will see the Harmonicon that was especially built for the critic John Ruskin, and she will visit his house, Brantwood on the shores of Lake Coniston, where he played music in his garden on fine days, listening to the echo from the mountains opposite.
The programme will also include interviews with geologists and artists who are working to make new instruments out of rock.
This documentary is the sixth project this year to feature the Musical Stones and follows closely the first public performance of the Stones outside of the Museum since 1897, when the Richardson Musical Stones were taken to the Coniston Water Festival in September and played by New York artist Brian Dewan and Jamie Barnes.