1848 – Revolution!

On our adventurous train journey out of London, I could hear anxious voices above the hissing steam engine and rattling machinery as the passengers discussed the news of ‘revolutions’ in Sicily, France, Germany, Italy and the Austrian Empire.  For me, all this excitable ‘chatter’ resonated with those experiences of conflict I had picked up at the Vienna Congress, and in London.  It now seemed as if the music reverberating in my body was being infused with unavoidable dissonance, as it had to mix with the more harmonious resonances exposed by my most sensitive players.

(Revolution in Europe)

Around this time there were other revolutionary movements in the sounds coming from philosophy and science, as well as religion. There was a great storm soon to break arising from Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories; there were changes afoot which changed the ways we approach the ‘Arts’ and how we listen to music; and there were far-reaching disruptions created by the Oxford Movement in the English Church. There was also a problem emerging about authority and power within the Wesleyan community, to which many of my players had particular connections. 

Back to our train journey!  We had to change at various ‘stations’, including Wymondham, where we had to rush for another train to connect us to Norwich, and Mary Ann nearly left me behind in the open carriage!

(Swanton Abbott)

We eventually reached Swanton Abbott, travelling the final ‘leg’ of the journey from Norwich by the more familiar carrier’s cart. Isaac, in particular, was ‘over the moon’ at seeing his Mary Ann again, and he could not believe his eyes when he caught sight of me in my old worn-out and well-travelled case!  ‘Could that really be my beautiful faithful fiddle?’, he asked.  When he finally took me out and played me again, he soon plumbed the depths of the overtones in my unique voice – and in a strange and profound way, I felt ‘at home’ in my body. In my musical reverberations, I was able make my true sound without denying that wealth of confusing emotions which I had ‘picked up’ in recent years in Europe, or the mechanical chatter on our train journey here from London.

(‘My beautiful faithful fiddle’)

Even though the political revolutions in Europe were totally unknown in Swanton Abbott, there was still very serious social unrest in this part of the world.  The local working people, including the ardent chapel-going population, with whom the Richardsons were associated, were deeply affected by the rise of petty crime, public restlessness and extreme drunken behaviour, with the consequent growth in the number of ‘beer shops’ – all in the wake of the ‘Swing Riots’ of 1830 and the new Poor Law of 1834, with its harsh legalism, causing pauperism among able-bodied workers to be considered a moral failing.  And then there was the deep resentment and suspicion of most forms of authority, the landowner, the squire and the local parson.

(Swing Riots cartoon)

As I listened to these acute concerns in this Norfolk community, I was aware that Britain, as a nation, had avoided a full-blown political revolution, unlike many of its continental European neighbours.   However, there was a sense of real anxiety in some quarters that the growing evangelical enthusiasm was leading people towards a rejection of local and parliamentary authority.

In no time at all I was once again accompanying Isaac on his regular preaching trips around the North Walsham Wesleyan Circuit, visiting all kinds of chapels and meeting houses.  On many occasions we were joined by his young nephew John Richardson, a carpenter and wheelwright, who was soon to become a fully-accredited Local Preacher alongside his uncle Isaac.  To my amazement, even though he could hardly read or write, young John – like his cousin Mary Ann – seemed completely ‘at home’ when he picked me up and played me!  All these fiddling Richardsons!

(John Richardson in much later years – far left)

But John Richardson’s natural musical ability lay in playing folk songs.  He preferred well-known and well-loved local folk tunes, like The Saucy Bold Robber, Young Henry the Poacher, Spurn Point, The Bold Young Sailor, etc, which he adapted and adjusted so as to fit the rhythm and metre of the equally-loved words of the Wesley brothers. It’s not without significance that Charles Wesley, in one of his hymns about the power of music(k), sang about ‘plundering the carnal lover’! It was quite a feat, but at the same time enormous fun!

You can imagine my surprise at all this, especially as, over the years, I had grown up with the nuances, inflexions, and expressions of highly-sophisticated chamber works, symphonies and concertos in Vienna and London, often with huge intellectual and philosophical challenges – even though this expectation was rarely realised. And yet I really ‘warmed’ to the stark contrast of this folksy style of music making!   John Richardson managed to strike a chord in me which was passionate and loving, perfectly ‘in tune’ with the ‘heart-warming’ message in the beautiful poetic imagery of those Wesley hymns, written specially for the ‘People called Methodists’.