Thanks for the link, Dave. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/arts/design/07antiques.html?src=twrhp>
> I will note also at least one 19th century painting I've seen > (at the Wyeth museum in Chadds Ford, PA, I think) in which a > young black boy is playing horn. The notion of slaves playing the horn isn't as odd as it might seem. Remember that well into the 19th century private orchestras were not uncommon among the European and American upper-class households. Their employers considered musicians to be part of the servant classes, which is they dressed their musicians in livery. (That's a detail that the movie 'Amadeus' got right.) Only the extraordinarily wealthy could afford to employ full-time musicians, so many were footmen, stable hands, gardeners, etc., when they weren't playing. In slave-owning societies, such as the US, slaves fulfilled the same functions as free servants elsewhere, including performing in private orchestras, as the article in the Times indicates. I talk briefly about slave musicians, including horn players, in my book about slavery in colonial South Africa (middle of the page): http://tinyurl.com/2f4vz7z http://books.google.com/books?id=N7damlJZAkkC&lpg=PA108&dq=slave%20musicians%20south%20africa%20social%20death%20and%20resurrection&pg=PA108#v=onepage&q&f=false --John ****************************** John Edwin Mason, Photography: http://www.JohnEdwinMason.com Charlottesville and Cape Town _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
