This conference, now in its thirtieth year, and run very capably by Katherine Hogg and Colin Colman (both Gerald Coke Handel Collection, The Foundling Museum), together with Claire Sharpe (Royal Academy of Music), is a personal favourite of mine. The variety of papers always means that one is drawn into at least one subject about which one knows almost nothing, but which invariably informs or enriches one's own area of expertise.

This year the conference got off to an excellent start with a paper by Matthew Gardner (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) offering a detailed exploration of the oratorio Ruth, commissioned by the Lock Hospital, with music by Charles Avison and Felice Giardini to a libretto by Thomas Haweis, a deputy preacher at the hospital and enthusiastic amateur musician. The music for Ruth is now lost, despite being kept in a strong box to which only three people had a key. But Gardner has been able, through extensive examination of the Hospital records at the Royal College of Surgeons, surviving wordbooks and newspaper advertisements, to reveal new details about performances of the oratorio. This was followed by an equally well-researched paper, by Andrew Woolley (Bangor University), on the life and career of William Walond the younger (1750–1836). Walond was an organist and a keen follower of Handel, and the Coke Collection contains a substantial anthology of keyboard music copied by him. Entertaining anecdotes concerning Walond, drawn from the diaries of John Marsh (gentleman composer and enemy of Walond), made for a diverting and informative presentation. The third paper of this morning session, ‘Appropriating Haydn Keyboard Arrangements in Late Eighteenth-Century London’ by Elena Pons (Royal Holloway), continued the theme of keyboard music in an insightful exploration of the rise in popularity of keyboard arrangements in late eighteenth-century Europe. Using as a case study English arrangements of Haydn's String Quartet Op. 33 No. 5/iv and Symphony No. 53, Pons's paper raised questions about the influence of publishing, along with the reception and performance of arrangements and the instruments for which they were intended.

Turning from the drawing room and looking towards the stage, the next paper, by Audrey Carpenter (Leicestershire), provided a fascinating biographical account of the life and work of ‘Italian’ singer Giovanna Sestini (1748–1814). Portugese by birth, Sestini's real name was Joanna Stocqueler, and she made her debut in Italy at the age of fifteen. Her first season in London was in 1774, and she spent the next twenty years as a successful singer in London, had eight children and was married (clandestinely) to a Portugese wine merchant. Though apparently very successful on the English stage (and in her final performances in Scotland for the Edinburgh Music Society), her lack of flamboyancy and avoidance of scandal means that she has until now been largely forgotten. The last speaker of the morning session, Sandra Tuppen (British Library), kept everyone engaged with a report on the Big Data History of Music, a project funded by the Arts and Humanties Research Council (AHRC) and run jointly by the British Library and Royal Holloway, University of London. The project's stated aim of ‘bringing digital humanities techniques to bear on research into the dissemination of musical works across time and geographical boundaries, and the formation of canons in music’ doesn't really do justice to the impact such a project has on our understanding of the transmission of composers’ works in eighteenth-century Britain. Using Purcell as a case study, Tuppen's paper raised many fascinating issues concerning big data collection and whether the demands of funding agencies such as the AHRC negatively influence or restrict scholars’ choice of research. This is a huge topic, of course, and one that gave the audience plenty to mull over during the ensuing lunch break.

The afternoon began with an examination by Marie Kent (Maidenhead) of what the wills and bequests of eighteenth-century London piano makers can reveal – not just about their personal lives, but also about their professional lives and the instruments they made. From bequests to servants, to instructions concerning payments of debts and the care and education of children, it was surprising what could be gleaned from the makers’ wills. Surprisingly entertaining as well as informative, this paper was the first of three concerning death and tied in very neatly to the next one, ‘The “Very Choice and Valuable” Music Library of Thomas Bever’ by Roya Stuart-Rees (Royal Holloway, University of London). A prime example of the amateur gentleman collector and music enthusiast of the mid- to late eighteenth century, Dr Thomas Bever (1725–1791), Doctor of Law and Fellow of All Souls College Oxford, was a member of the Academy of Ancient Music, a subscriber to the Concert of Antient Music and a founder member of the Glee Club. His private music collection was deemed to be one of the finest ever offered for public sale when it was auctioned in 1798, but the sale catalogue (detailing the complete collection, excepting the works of Handel bequeathed to James Bartleman) has only recently come to light. Matthias Range (University of Oxford) closed this session with a paper drawn from his forthcoming book, ‘Eighteenth-Century “Concert Funerals”’ (a sequel to Music and Ceremonial at British Coronations from James I to Elizabeth II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)). A highlight was Range's revelation that music's prominent role in funeral ceremonies probably influenced the change in the entrance procession's route, which was significantly prolonged for the benefit of the spectators, who themselves seem to have been a noteworthy innovation at royal funerals.

The next speaker, Michael Talbot (University of Liverpool), introduced me a few years ago to the life and works of the little-known violinist and composer Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli (died 1752), many of whose sonatas I have now had the pleasure of performing, at another MECB conference. And so I was particularly pleased to hear another captivating paper from him, this time on the life and works of Francesco Barsanti, with particular emphasis on his contributions to the dissemination of ‘national’ song through arrangements of French, English, Scottish and even Sephardic songs. Arguably one of the most important Italian immigrant musicians to take up permanent residence in Britain during the first half of the eighteenth century, Barsanti appears to have had a low public profile, though he attracted many loyal patrons who supported his diverse published collections. Talbot showed how Barsanti's contribution to the cult of ‘national’ music went beyond his collection of Old Scots Tunes and tied in with his interest in the music of earlier centuries, as made plain by his membership in the Madrigal Society. This European theme was continued in the penultimate paper by Ellen Moerman (London), who provided a fascinating exploration of the world of eighteenth-century translators, in particular their impact on public perception of treatises and other books on the theory and practice of music. Her paper provoked a lively debate from the audience. The final paper of the day was ‘The Shared Rhetoric of Handel and Eighteenth-Century Landscape Gardening’ by John Bowker (Carnforth). Beginning with an interesting examination of Barack Obama's inauguration speech, Bowker argued that rhetorical devices were ‘a crucial resource for any discipline which made a presentation to an audience’ in the eighteenth century. His paper sought to illustrate this by highlighting the appearance of similar rhetorical devices in Handel arias and eighteenth-century British landscape gardening. Though based on a small selection of examples, Bowker's paper clearly held potential for expansion into a larger exploration of this fascinating subject.