The Present State of Music in France and Italy.: The JOURNAL of a TOUR through those Countries, undertaken to collect Materials for A GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC

Meet Dr Burney, musician, musicologist, and one who Dr Samuel Johnson would have styled ‘a very clubbable man.’ Annotated and illustrated.

My reasons for editing and republishing the three volumes of Dr Charles Burney’s journals are several.

Firstly, to make his text more accessible to a 21st century reader.

Nextly, to identify, where possible, the people Burney met and the places he visited. Some of these persons are obscure or forgotten and hence unidentifiable without more research than this project warranted. Some towns and villages have been obliterated by time or conquest or renaming. Burney’s spelling of names is sometimes unreliable, and these too have been corrected: again, where possible.

Furtherly, to provide a portrait of the persons Burney met, or an illustration of some the items, or the locations he mentions; a contemporary depiction whenever one could be sourced.

When first looking in to Burney’s Journeys, I began to warm to this man; his wit, his erudition, his shrewdness, his Enlightenment curiosity. Especially his geniality. Burney is received not only with courtesy but with some eagerness at the residences of the Great; ‘great’ in the matter of social rank – princes and such; and ‘great’ in our present estimation – giants in the musical earth, Gluck, Hasse, Metastasio…

A vision of Gluck in his nightcap and gown is a vision granted to few. Burney has shared it. We go with him, almost too scared to breathe, and meet Voltaire. CPE Bach conducts him around Hamburg and sighs that Burney is ‘fifty years too late’ to hear good music. Burney chats with Leopold Mozart. He attends a soirée where Frederick the Great is a-fluting. He discusses electricity with Dr Laura Bassi…

And I could not but admire his forbearance; an enthusiast in his quest, willing to endure much hardship. For Burney’s Present State series is also an engaging travel saga. It is social as well as musical history. Remarkable, too the number of female composers and performers he meets. Since then, written out of history? Or do tastes change?

Meet Dr Burney. Every music lover owes him a debt of gratitude.