Musical Evenings in the Captain's Cabin: More Music from the Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian by Richard Kapp, -- Mela Tenenbaum, violin; Yosif Feigelson, cello, CD1080 Essay. C, List price 15.00, Your Price 15.00, B01254.

One quotes Patrick O’Brian with some caution. At his US National Archives lecture he was asked if there were an atlas that would permit one to follow the travels of Aubrey and Maturin since the questioner could not find some areas in his atlas. Slyly POB answered, "Well, places do change their names." Later in Sea of Words and in Harbors and High Seas we learn that some of the names may have been created by O’Brian. We also know that the opening concert in Master and Commander, the Locatelli, was another invention of O’Brian. POB had a penchant for leaving some of his plot in the blank space between the chapters. In this CD produced by Richard Kapp, a POB fan, pulls together works from the correct time and place which Aubrey and Maturin COULD have been played in between some of the published chapters.

POB's notes for the first Musical Evenings CD make clear that a musical background was not uncommon for men of Aubrey's class and time. After all, this was their culture, these were their instruments, this was what they listened to and what they encountered in the various civilized societies they landed in, both in the British Isle, in Europe and even in the western hemisphere, wherever Europeans had preceded them.  Richard Kapp writes, "The new CD differs from [our previous Musical Evenings CDs] in that it focuses exclusively on music for violin and cello _ the two instruments that A&M played. In the course of our earlier cds we have included music they might have heard in Port Mahon (Locatelli) or played with others aboard the ship (Mozart Oboe Quartet) along with other works that could well have been within their ken. Here we have drilled down to the repertoire for their two instruments by composers whose work might well have been known to them through the extensive London music publishing world."

Kapp continues, "By the beginning of the 19th century, music publishing had become a major pre_industrial industry. Remember that there was no recorded music _ you wanted to listen, you had better play or find someone else who could. To fill this demand, composers produced a wealth of material, much of it very well crafted, suited to the proclivities of their marketplace. The music should be not too challenging, just challenging enough. It could be light and entertaining but often a bit of "gravitas" added to the allure. Older music could be adapted for new instrumental combinations (the Vivaldi was originally a vertical flute (recorder) sonata with keyboard and cello doubling the bass, or it could be new music reflecting the latest in musical taste and style."

"We have included music from Italy (Vivaldi, Platti, Nardini), Bohemia (Stamitz), France (Breval, Germany and Austria (Fiala), and London (Fiorillo and Nardini, again). A composer's actual birthplace often had less to do with his style than how he was raised and trained and where he spent his working years."

"All of this is music that Aubrey might have revelled in, bought in sheet music in London, and carried with him to the ship.  And all of it treats the cello as equal partner in musical undertakings."

Gary Brown in the following book list every musical piece mentioned in the Aubrey-Maturin novels.

Persons, Animals, Ships, and Cannon in the Aubrey-Maturin Sea Novels of Patrick O'Brian by Anthony Gary Brown, This book catalogs every person, animal, ship and cannon mentioned by name in Patrick O'Brian's series on the maritime adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. The novels, renowned for their far-ranging web of wit and allusion, teem with thousands of characters and ships, both imaginary and historical. Many that POB himself would get confused. From Master and Commander to The Hundred Days, this encyclopedia distinguishes the fictional from the factual, making a useful series companion for both the casual reader and the most ardent O'Brian fans. Each of the more than 4,500 alphabetized entries provides a reference to the novels and chapters in which the topic appears. Additionally, biographical notes on the historical figures are included, with sources provided in an annotated bibliography. A native of England raised in a Royal Navy family, Anthony Gary Brown earned his Ph.D. at Oxford. He is a writer and business consultant living in Los Angeles. The author adds: "incidentally, may I correct the impression that my own PASC is a mere concordance (i. e., a context-free listing of terms and their occurrence)? I'm partly responsible for this myself as I called it such way back when its preliminary version was an [internet] offering. In fact it is more of a biographical dictionary of the people and ships in the canon. You get full contextual details of who they are and what they do (together with extensive cross-referencing and notes on POB's slips and inconsistencies). You also get full notes of the historical origins of the people, ships and incidents. For example: an Index can tell you where Prof. Ebenezer Graham is mentioned in the canon.  It can't tell you, as PASC does, that's he's part-based on the real Prof. Hugh Cleghorn. An index will tell you who supposedly owned Potoooooooo the race-horse (because that's in the canon), but not how his name was pronounced, who he really was, and which of his real equine relatives are also mentioned in the canon."--McFarland & Co., 1999, Source book, 7x10. P, List Price $35.00, Your price $28.00, Book Number B00692.Go to top.