Music in the Aubrey and Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian is one of the most enjoyable features of the series. Love of music brought Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin together on page one of the first book; as the series progress, music cements the bond of their friendship. Time spent sawing their strings is time spent in repose from the alternating monotony and unimaginable stresses of life at sea....although [Stephen Maturin] and Jack Aubrey were almost as unlike as men could be, unlike in nationality, religion, education, size, shape, profession, habit of mind, they were united in a deep love of music, and many and many an evening had they played together, violin answering `cello or both singing together far into the night. [IOM:154]Captain Aubrey's steward Killick has an entirely different appreciation (courtesy Lisa Grossman) of their playing:...and as they felt their way through the difficult sonata time after time they made the night so hideous that Killick's indignation broke out at last and he said to the Captain's cook, `There they go again, tweedly-deedly, tweedly-deedly, belly-aching the whole bleeding night, and the toasted cheese seizing on to their plates like goddam glue, which I dursen't go in to fetch them; and never an honest tune from beginning to end.' [IOM:49]This listing of the musical references in the Aubrey/Maturin series is the result of the efforts of several volunteers, listed below. It is a work in progress - if you can supply citations for the items lacking them, or stumble upon an unlisted reference in your reading, please send me a note.
If you are interested in Patrick O'Brian, please visit the Patrick O'Brian Web Resources web page where you will find a cornucopia of links related to the author, his writings, and the Age of Fighting Sail.
- Musical Evenings with the Captain - a CD set inspired by the novels
- About the project
- The listings
- Plainchant and Liturgical Songs
- Songs
- Contributors
Musical Evenings with the Captain
ESS.A.Y Recordings has produced a set of compact discs titled ``Musical Evenings with the Captain" Volumes I & II (ESS.A.Y CD1047 & CD1056) a selection of music performed by Philharmonia Virtuosi likely to have been heard echoing up through the vents from the Captain's cabin or from the quarterdeck based on direct or indirect mentions in the novels.
Patrick O'Brian wrote the liner notes for Volume I.
Track list for Volume I:
- Pietro Antonio Locatelli
- Sonata in G Major, Op. 5 No. 1 for 2 Violins & Basso Continuo
- Franz Josef Haydn
- Duet for Violin & Cello in D Major
- George Frederich Handel
- Eight Pieces for Violin and Cello
- Pietro Antonio Locatelli
- Sonata in C Minor, Op. 6 No. 5 for Violin & Basso Continuo
- Luigi Boccherini
- Sonata for Violin & Cello in D Major
- Jean Marie Leclair
- Sonata in D Minor for 2 Violins & Basso Continuo
Liner notes for Volume II were written by ESS.A.Y director Richard Kapp, who also plays fortepiano on the last two pieces. He notes O'Brian remarking to him on board the Rose "with great grace, that some of his musical references were, perhaps, not as literal as they appeared at first glance." Kapp also explains why each piece was selected.
The cover painting for the second volume is "Shipping in the Mouth of the Thames" by John Callow.
Track list for Volume II:
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370 (368B)
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004
- Franz Josef Haydn
- Trio in G Major, (Hob.XV:25)
- Johann Christian Bach
- Sonata in D Major Opus 16, No.1 for Violin & Keyboard
The compact discs are available from:
ESS.A.Y. Recordings[Contents]
145 Palisade Street
Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522
1-800-97-ESSAY
+1-914-693-5595
+1-914-693-7040 (fax) info@essaycd.com
An Ongoing Project
Paul Murphy initiated this project and posted the first compilation of pieces to the Patrick O'Brian internet mailing list on 8 March 1996. This web page was created a month or two later, and we have been adding refernces ever since. Novels for which the musical references have been completely compiled are listed below with a bullet. The three-letter mnemonic book code following the title is used with the Norton page numbers where the location of piece is known listed after a colon. In the listing below the number following the colon indicates the number of known musical references in each book.The Aubrey-Maturin Novels by Patrick O'Brian
Format: Title [Code: number of musical references]
- Master and Commander [MCO:9]
- Post Captain [POC:11]
H.M.S. Surprise [HMS:1]
The Mauritius Command [MAU:0]- Desolation Island [DES:2]
- The Fortune of War [FOW:5]
- The Surgeon's Mate [SRM:9]
- The Ionian Mission [IOM:9]
- Treason's Harbour [TRH:7]
- The Far Side of the World [FSW:5]
- The Reverse of the Medal [ROM:2]
- The Letter of Marque [LOM:15]
- The Thirteen Gun Salute [TGS:3]
The Nutmeg of Consolation [NOC:1]
The Truelove (or Clarissa Oakes) [TRU:0]- The Wine-Dark Sea [WDS:3]
The Commodore [COM:0]- The Yellow Admiral [YEL:1]
Musical References Arranged by Composer
Page numbers reflect the Norton paperback and hardback editions. Numbers in parenthesis refer to UK edition page numbers, either Collins or Fontana.)
- Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685 - 1750)
- Double sonata in D minor [IOM:48] by "Old Bach"
- Passion according to St. Mark [IOM:48]
- Partita in C [IOM:48][IOM:154-5] (several have suggested this is probably the Bach Partita in D Minor for solo violin with its complex chaconne.)
- Benda, Jiri Antonin (1722-1795)
- Violin and Cello in C minor
- Boccherini, Luigi (1743 - 1805)
- 'cello piece
- Suites in D min., C maj., D maj. [WDS]
- Corelli sonata [POC]
- Requiem, ``Dies Irae" [LOM:254] (see discussion below)
- Mr. Brown (fictional dockyard master of Mahon)
- Minorcan Divertimento [MCO:204]
- B Minor Duettoes
- unspecified duettos [MCO:48]
- Cimarosa, Domenico (1747 - 1801) ``that amiable phoenix"
- Le Astuzie Feminili (an opera, translated, ``Feminine Wiles") [POC:466-7 (393), 469]
- Cherubini, Luigi (1760 - 1842)
- 'cello sonata
- Clementi, Muzio (1752 - 1832)
- C major quintet [FOW:177] - played by Dr. Choate and his patients, with Jack and Stephen listening, "silent until the sombre disenchantment of the finale."
- Minuet in C major arranged for violin and 'cello by Jack [SRM:59-60]
- Contarini (fictional?)
- 'cello sonata [TRH:81]
- Corelli, Arcangelo (1653 - 1713)
- partita [TGS:85] "not a hemidemisemiquaver of all the multitude out of place"
- (sonata?) in C major [FSW:69,141][DES:114] - "often-played yet ever-fresh" (Tony Lipman suggests op. V no. 3)
- Suites in D minor
- D major
- Dittersdorff, Carl Ditters von (1739 - 1799) [ROM][WDS]
- Duport, Jean Louis (1749 - 1819), or Jean Pierre (1741 - 1818)
- "a charming piece" [LOM:67-68]
- sonata [LOM:186]
- Frescobaldi, Girolamo (1583 - 1643)
- Gloria [FSW]
- Gluck, Mikhail (1714 - 1787)
- "that piece of Gluck's in D minor" [ROM:24]
- Handel, George Frederich (1685 - 1759) - a good home page
- Ode for St. Cecilia's Day
- Fugue [POC:399-400]
- (see CD)
- Haydn, Franz Josef (1732 - 1809)
- Trio [MCO:348]
- Symphony
- a set of variations on a theme [FSW:217] - "...handed to and fro with some pleasant improvisations moved it somewhat farther; but neither was in a mood to be wholly possessed by music..."
- Maturin's variations on a theme [LOM:168]
- Hummel, Johann Nepomuk (1778 - 1837)
- D major Sonata [POC:37,157][LOM:266][WDS?]
- sonata [SRM:109]
- Locatelli, Pietro Antonio (1695 - 1764)
- C major quartet [MOC:7] (According to Lisa Grossman, he wrote no quartets.)
- (see CD)
- Maturin, Stephen
- "Lament for the Tir nan Og" [POC:485 (407)] - ``The only bearable part of my country; it vanished long ago."
- Molter, Johann Melchior (1696 - 1765)
- Concert ``The music, I believe, had nothing to say, but it provided a background of 'cellos and woodwinds and allowed the the trumpet to make exquisite sounds - pure colour tearing through this formal elegance." [POC:448]
- Rondo [FSW:141] - setup for the ``vile clench"
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756 - 1791) - The Mozart Project (an excellent site)
- quartet [MCO:184-5]
- Le Nozze di Figaro [POC:270,225] ``'I was telling you some ten or twenty courses back, that I had heard a wonderful Figaro at the Opera...; there is a new woman, La Colonna, who sings Susanna with a grace and a purity I have never heard in my life...Ottoboni is the Contessa, and their duet would bring tears to your eyes....'"
- La Clemenza di Tito [TGS:110 (110)]
- B flat quartet [MCO:184] - including Mr. Brown, dockyard master of Port Mahon
- B minor [DES:274]
- B minor, D major, D minor quartet
- ``the Mozart piece that was no doubt lurking somewhere in the Frenchman's mind when he wrote [the Marseillaise]" [LOM:63]
- Le Nozze di Figaro, ``Deh vieni, non tardar" [MCO:76 (66), 302 (257)] [HMS:54 (45)]
- Le Nozze di Figaro, ``Possibile é la cosa e naturale. E se Susanna vuol possibilissima") [MCO:147 (125)] [POC]
- Le Nozze di Figaro [LOM:235] ``...it would have prevented me from inviting you to hear a very charming Figaro with me tonight."
- Le Nozze di Figaro, Act IV, ``Ah tutti contenti saremo cosí" [LOM:240,284]
- Le Nozze di Figaro, ``Contessa perdono, perdono, perdono" [LOM:240, 266]
- Le Nozze di Figaro [LOM:253] ```Do you recognize that?' `Of course,' said Jack. `It comes at the end of Figaro, the lovliest thing."
- Requiem, ``Dies Irae" [LOM:254] (see discussion below)
- Quartet in D major [LOM:254]
- Sotto i pini [TRU:88] ``Jack said 'I can think of nothing in in its particular way so beautiful or moving... Lord, Stephen, joy makes me sleepy. Don't you find joy makes you sleepy?'"
- Oboe quartet in F major [YEL:126]
- Palestrina, Giovanni (1740 - 1860)
- Missa Brevis
- Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista (1710 - 1736)
- variations on a theme by ~[LOM]
- Sammartini, Giovanni Batista (1700 - 1775) or Giuseppe (c. 1693 - 1750)
- Duo for violin and 'cello [LOM]
- Scarlatti, Alessandro (1660 - 1725) or Domenico (1685 - 1757)
- D minor [FSW:217]
- C major
- "a comparatively simple ~ piece that they both knew well" [IOM:50]
Plainchants & liturgical song
- Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. [MCO:54 (47)] - ``Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy."
- Dies Irae [LOM:254] - not Gregorian, but rather a work of a 13th c. Franciscan, probably Tomaso di Celano, who studied at Bologna and used a tune of unknown origin, quite possibly an old folk-carol. Note that the familiar Dies Irae tune was deep-sixed by later composers who did more formal Requiems in their own idioms, and only a few of the earlier ones actually used the Dies Irae at all - Verdi almost single-handedly revived it for his Requiem, but even Lassus' strict Gregorian-style requiems of the 1580's and Palestrina's of the same era omit what was seen by most composers as a ``church-only" piece, by which they meant ``old-fashioned," the creatures.)... Meanwhile, after listening to the Boccherini Requiem earlier this evening, I am almost convinced that this would have been the one most current on the large-scale Church music scene of the period outside Austria, and one Stephen might well have heard: it contains the old-melody dies irae. (Mark Fowler)
- ``first psalm in the Dorian mode" [TRH:301] - ``also called `First Mode', the mode to which belong those plainchants whose notes lie predominantly in the octave between D and d, whose final note is D, and whose melodies tend to hover about the note a." (Lynn Steele)
- Montserrat Salve Regina [SRM:254] (God Save the Queen, to wit, of heaven)
- ``Old Hundredth" (The Doxology, or Psalm 100) [TRH:125]
- ``a plain-chant thanksgiving [Maturin] had often heard at Montserrat before the French sacked, desecrated and destroyed the monastery" [NOC:309]
- ``That must be a flauto d'amore" [TRH:78] This seems to be a Stephen's description of the type of flute rather than a musical composition. Or maybe he's saying something altogether different.
- Sext and nones [TRH:244] - ``two of the offices chanted daily in monasteries (at the ``sixth" and ``ninth" hours" (Lynn Steele)
Songs
MEN-OF-WAR, by Patrick O'Brian contains a whole chapter titled "Songs" which number of lyrics for traditional songs sung in the Age of Fighting Sail. "The beautiful working songs and shanties of the merchant ships had no place in the Royal Navy, which was a silent service," O'Brian writes. "But even so, there was music aboard a man-of-war: when the grog was served out the ship's fifer played "Nancy Dawson", or "Sally in our Alley"; when the men were drummed to quarters it was to the tune of "Heart of Oak"; and when the anchor was being weighed the fiddler sat on the capstan and struck up "Drops of Brandy". O'Brian includes lyrics for "Spanish Ladies", "I'll tell you of a fight, boys, and how it did begin", and one about the action between HMS Nymphe and Clèopâtre.The following links (except for "Roast Beef of Old England") point to Digital Tradition's online folk lyrics database. If the links below don't work, go directly to their lyrics search facility and type at in the title or lyric fragment you are interested in. One can download the entire database of folk lyrics.
- ``Admiral Hosier's Ghost" [POC:158]
- ``All in the Downs" [SRM:183]
- `` Battle of the Nile"
- ``Bay of Biscay-o" [POC:271]
- ``Britons Strike Home"
- ``Chevy Chase" [SRM:183]
- ``Drops of Brandy" [POC:271]
- ``The Female Lieutenant" [POC:271]
- `` Heart of Oak" - by David Garrick, ca. 1759 [SRM:265]
- ``The Lady and Death" [SRM:183]
- `` Nancy Dawson" [FOW]
- ``Nelson at Copenhagen" [TRH:293] - ``With their thundering and roaring, rattling and roaring | Thundering and roaring bombs."
- ``Oh oh the mourning dove" [FOW]
- ``Oh the wild geese a-flying,a-flying, a-flying" Irish Song
- `` Roast Beef of Old England" [IOM:33][LOM:180]
- `` Spanish Ladies" [POC:213][SRM:291][TRH:133][TGS:93]
- ``St. Patrick's Day" (or ``Bacon and Greens") [POC:158]
- ``Stone Walls do not a Prison Make" [SRM:341]
- ``There happened late a terrible fray"
- `` Yankee Doodle" [FOW]
Not mentioned specifically in the series, but of interest because they describe events in or mentioned in the series are:
- `` The Constitution and the Guerriere" - an American song celebrating the devastating victory of the USS Constitution over a British frigate.
- `` Shannon and Chesapeake" - a British parody of ``The Constitution and the Gueriere".
- `` The Battle Of The Shannon And Chesapeake"
Contributors:
- Alicia Rasley
- Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)
- Allan Janus, appearing courtesy The Janus Museum, an excellent multimedia venue.
- Andrew Jillings
- Barbara <bab@powerup.com.au>
- Bruce Trinque (Batrinque@aol.com)
- Catherine McClelland (cmclella@calgary.cbc.ca)
- David Leavenworth
- Diane Renshaw
- Donald Boose (102531.3302@compuserve.com)
- Joan Covington (djcoving@daktel.com)
- Linda Payzant
- Lisa Grossman (gordian@vdot.net)
- Lynn Steele (lsteele@MIT.EDU)
- Mark Fowler (vladnarus@earthlink.net)
- Martha Holland (hollandm@netcom.com)
- Peter Payzant
- Randy Johnson (rjohnso@soleil.acomp.usf.edu)
- Rich Benedict (dick@ccgate.dragonsys.com)
- Steve Townsend
- Tay Tahk (71324.2003@CompuServe.COM)
- Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com)
[Patrick O'Brian Web Resources] [Gibbons Burke's Home Page]Created 8 March 1996 - Last updated 21 December 1997
© Copyright 1997, 1998 by Gibbons Burke
