SOON after he had quitted his legal master, his father accidentally calling at a gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood, upon business,* found him engaged with company; but sending in his name, he was invited up stairs, where there was a large company and a concert, in which, to his great astonishment, he caught his son in the very act of playing the first fiddle!*
No sooner was the young musician able to practise aloud in his father’s house, than he bewitched the whole family. In discovering that his sister had a very sweet-toned and touching voice,* he gave her such instructions as soon enabled her to sing for Lampe, in his opera of Amelia.*
And finding her so well received in that performance, he soon prepared a new character for her, by setting Addison’s opera of Rosamond, in which he employed his younger brother likewise in the character of the Page.* This musical drama was first performed March 7th, 1733, at Lincoln's-Inn Fields, ten nights successively, and with great applause.
abridged
Thomas Arne Sr was an upholsterer and innkeeper by trade, a very well-to-do merchant able to give his son the very best education. When some Canadian Mohawk princes visited London in 1709, in between audiences with Queen Anne and experiencing all that eighteenth century London had to offer they lodged with Mr Arne at his inn, The Crown and Cushion, in King Street, Covent Garden. See ‘Four Indian Kings In London’ at ‘American Heritage’.
Probably one of the soirées organised by Michael Festing (1705-1752), Thomas’s senior by less than five years, who had been a pupil of Richard Jones and Francesco Geminiani. Festing took Arne to musical events all over London, and taught him the violin. He later became a founder-member of the Academy of Ancient Music.
Susannah Arne subsequently became Mrs Theophilus Cibber, and was better known as Mrs Cibber in her own day. She was a soloist at the premiere of Handel’s “Messiah” in Dublin. See The Story of ‘Messiah’.
John Frederick Lampe (1703-1751) emigrated to Britain from Saxony in 1724, making a living as a bassoonist in London. He was a friend of Charles Wesley, and has left us several hymn-tunes. ‘Amelia’ was produced in 1732.
Richard Arne, who appeared with Susannah and Thomas in many of Thomas’s earlier works.