Pandean minstrels in performance at Vauxhall

Lee, John (1781-1858)

Burney, Edward Francis (1760-1848) (after a work of)

Item type:

print

Date of creation:

1806

Technique / Medium:

engraving

Description

Print presents four men and one woman, all playing panpipes (ranges labeled); the woman, in the center plays the bass papipes and a long cylindrical drum (held horizontally and using two different types of beaters); the men play percussion instruments in addition to their panpipes (cymbals, triangle, Turkish crescent, and tambourine). ---- Notes from Yale online exhibit 'Art and Music in Britain: Four Encounters': Little is known about the Pandean Minstrels, one of the popular musical entertainments that appear to have enjoyed some success at Vauxhall in the first decade of the nineteenth century. On the basis of sheet music published in 1809 and 1810, featuring favorite pandean music as performed by the Pandean Minstrels, they were primarily a dance band, playing marches, quick steps, minuets, waltzes, and airs. The pandean pipes, or panpipes, gave the group their name. Each performer appears to have played simultaneously the pipes and a percussion instrument, giving the band something of the appearance of a novelty act. The panpipes, however, also had pastoral and classical associations that would have been entirely in keeping with Vauxhall’s overall program, as would the instrument similar to a Roman sistra played by the second figure from the right.

Iconclass

48C73
musical instruments; group of musical instruments
48C753
more than one musician with instrument
48A722
concert hall

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Panpipe [4024] (five, with ranges labeled: primo, secondo tenore, basso, contrabasso)
Cylindrical drum [2532] (held horizontally)
Beater [6071] (two types)
Triangle [3005] (with beater)
Cymbals [2451]
Tambourine [2746]
Turkish crescent [2877]

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1
image link 2
image link 4
image link 5

Bibliographic references

Barringer, Timothy J. Art & music in Britain: Four encounters, 1730-1900 (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2006) 6-7, 9.

Notes

"PANDEAN MINSTRELS IN PERFORMANCE AT VAUX-HALL" [center, above image]. "Published as the Act directs, Decr. 1st. 1806 by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row" [centered, several lines below image and credit lines]. "E. Burney del." [immediately below image, left corner]; "Jno. Lee sculp." [immediately below image, right corner]. ------ Later also reproduced in vol. 3 of plates in Abraham Rees' Cyclopedia or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Literature (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1820), with plate number and added title: PLATE VI [upper right corner]; INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC [top center, above original title].

RIdIM record id

6285