Thomas Erskine (1732-1781)
- Overture 'The Maid of the Mill' (c.1768)
Performers: Concerto Caledonia
Further info: Thomas Erskine (1732-1781) - Periodical Overture No. 16
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Scottish composer. Born into a genteel, poor and somewhat bohemian
landowning family, he seems to have learnt to play the violin at an
early age. He attended Edinburgh High School for two years, but his
formal education was ended by the 1745 Rebellion, in which his father
sided with Bonnie Prince Charlie. At 17 Kelly joined the Edinburgh
Musical Society (as ‘Lord Pittenweem’, the family's cadet title),
probably taking violin lessons from McGibbon. He also closely studied
the orchestral works of contemporary masters, especially those of
Barsanti, who had lived in Edinburgh up to 1743. In about 1752 he went
on the Grand Tour, spending much of the next four years in Mannheim, and
then probably Paris, studying composition and violin with Johann
Stamitz; in August 1755 Stamitz published his orchestral trios op.1 from
Paris, ‘dédiées à The Right Honourable Mylord Pittenweem’. On his
father's death in 1756 Kelly returned to Scotland an ardent convert to
Mannheim orchestral music. His own opus 1, a set of six splendid
orchestral overtures glowing with Mannheim effects to which British
audiences were totally unaccustomed, was published by Bremner in
Edinburgh in 1761. Kelly probably spent considerable time in London in
the early 1760s; from this period date his friendships with the actor
Samuel Foote and the castrato G.F. Tenducci. In 1762 he became Grand
Master Mason of England. He wrote two overtures for pasticcios given in
London theatres, for Ezio (Little Haymarket, 29 November 1764) and The
Maid of the Mill (Covent Garden, 31 January 1765). From 1767 Kelly spent
most of his time in Edinburgh. He accepted the deputy governorship of
the Edinburgh Musical Society that year. It was largely through his
efforts that Tenducci became a frequent visitor to Edinburgh (where he
sang in the Scottish production of Arne's Artaxerxes in 1769), that
J.G.C. Schetky, Thomas Pinto, the Corri family and John Collett settled
in the town, and that the Reinagle family were encouraged to stay. He
continued to compose, and his work was performed locally to vast
applause: by 1770 it had become an outstanding attraction for
upper-class visitors to Edinburgh. After 1769 no more of Kelly's new
compositions were printed, but they circulated vigorously round Scotland
in manuscript copies. By 1774 there are signs that Kelly's creativity
was waning. His eight minuets for Lord Stanley's wedding in Surrey are
all recycled old ones (see Johnson, 1984), and after that he seems to
have suffered a complete nervous and physical breakdown. Home's portrait
(c1778, touched up for publication as an engraving) shows him a
worn-out wreck in his mid-40s. He went to Spa in Belgium in 1781 to
drink the waters, but the cure was unsuccessful and he died in Brussels
on the way back.
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