Prince Charles and the Musette

The November 2022 talk by Dr Amanda Babington was originally entitled "What did Bonnie Prince Charlie play on his Musette?" It turns out that the answer could be, "Quite possibly, nothing!"

In a fascinating piece of historical detection, Amanda tells the story of the Musette, an inquiry stimulated by the rather worn-looking Musette in the West Highlands Museum to which is attached a plaque that reads ‘Charles Edward Stuart, last PRINCE of the Royal House of Stuart’. Today, the Musette is a little-known instrument with some similarities to the Northumbrian Pipes and Irish Uilleann Pipes. The Musette fell out of fashion after the French Revolution because of its aristocratic connections.

After telling the story of the Musette, Amanda provides a detailed consideration of the evidence that Charles Edward Stuart himself owned one, and a summary of the musicians who composed music for it. She concludes that the evidence that the Prince personally played the Musette remains circumstantial. However, Amanda continues her quest to find a first-hand account of him playing the instrument, which she believes may exist in one of the smaller archives. Her talk ends on a positive note - whatever the outcome of her research, she has already unveiled a great deal of unpublished information on the evolution of the Musette, the composers associated with it, and its role in court and social life in 18th-century France and Italy.

About the speaker.

Amanda Babington is a musette player, baroque violinist and recorder, specialising in historically informed performance. Artistic Director of Baroque In The North, she plays regularly with many of the leading British and European period-instrument ensembles, as well as with chamber ensembles AB24, Four’s Company and Aberdeen Early Music Collective. Recently interviewed for BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show, Amanda’s debut album Music for French Kings (Deux-Elles, 2022) received rave reviews. Amanda is a Visiting Performance Fellow at Aberdeen University and Director of the University of Manchester Baroque Orchestra. She has given masterclasses at various universities and conservatoires in the UK, and at the JāzepsVītols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga.

A lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music, she has given talks at Göttingen Handel-Festival, The Foundling Museum, London, and Manchester Camerata. Amanda has published various articles on Handel, and her edition of Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe was published by Bärenreiter in 2016. More recently, however, her research has focused on French Baroque music pertaining to the musette.