Victorian Music for the English Concertina

Book excerpt: Developed by the physicist Charles Wheatstone around 1830, the English concertina was extremely popular in art-music circles of Victorian England until late in the nineteenth century. This edition includes fifteen works that present a cross section of the instrument¿s concert and salon repertories, and includes music by the "mainstream" composers George Alexander Macfarren, Julius Benedict, and Bernhard Molique, as well as original compositions by such concertina virtuosos as Giulio Regondi and Richard Blagrove. There are also pieces by two little-known women composers/arrangers, Hannah Rampton Binfield and Rosina King (the instrument was particularly popular with women), and an arrangement by George Case of a well-known hymn tune, which shows how the baritone concertina was used in small parish churches. Finally, there are two works for concertina ensembles, a duo for treble and baritone concertina by Blagrove and a transcription by Regondi for concertina quartet of the final movement of Mozart¿s Symphony No. 38 "Prague."