3 Review(s)

Charles Burney (1726-1814), the music historian, is best remembered for his General History of Music and the accounts of his musical tours in Europe. He was a friend of Samuel Johnson and David Garrick, corresponded with Diderot and Haydn and was made Fellow of the Royal Society in 1773. Although he was a music teacher by profession, it was his writings on music which brought him widespread recognition during his lifetime. Following publication of the General History, he began his memoirs but did not complete them. It is likely that he intended his daughter, the novelist Fanny Burney, to publish them after his death using his manuscript and other papers. Instead she created an embellished version, adding stylised accounts of events emphasising the literary and social, rather than the musical aspects. Regrettably, she also destroyed a quantity of Burney's papers, feeling them to be irrelevant to her father's memory.