Finchcocks Musical Museum

The main attractions are the musical instruments you can see on a guided tour, or a concert in the evening. But there are other attractions.  The building has a statue of Queen Anne on the front, much thinner than she supposedly was in real life. The gardens are open daytime to the public with an honesty box. We parked on the grass for free in the evening having bought tickets for the sold out concert.

The way in through the shop is a delight. You can buy scarves with musical motifs in red, white or black. (£7.50 each.)

I was amused by a tote bag with the slogan, The Chopin bag, which I presumed was a pun on the shopping bag.  Another bag with no handles can be used to store papers or music scores.

I also bought two small musical instruments you can blow into.

Tickets for the concert were about £20 each. We sat in rows of chairs in a large downstairs front room. The singers were Dame Emma and her entourage.

In the interval everybody could collect a glass of red or white wine (or tap water). Upstairs you could look at the astonishing musical instruments. These ranged from box shaped harpsichord styles with keyboards, to those with high vertical sections, and a tiny table top item like a cross between a musical box and a barrel organ which played ten tunes.

I think the proper tour of the museum hearing the instruments played and learning about them must be interesting. I did not see a guidebook to the museum but I believe there is one.

What of the concert? Wonderful. Duets, solos and lots of what I call 'round robin singing. Sometimes the soloist or chorus repeat the last two lines of a verse, or one voice repeats another, or the entire group keep singing different lines from the same verse.

In addition to the enjoyable singing, we learned a lot about the composer who lived int he reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Most of the songs seems to be praising the Queen, as if she were a teenage beauty, instead of up to and including the last year or her life. A few songs from the lyricists second book were more melancholy.

The most interesting parts of the information given included a demonstration of the way the singers in those days sat on all four sides of a table reading the words and music written on all four sides of the paper. Paper was expensive in those days. Made me realise how lucky we are to live in the 21st century, when you can pop out to a stationery store, the average person can buy books cheaply, and notebooks and diaries. If you can't afford new paper, you can buy a set of small notebooks from a pound shop, or even write on the back of used white envelopes delivering junk mail.

A delightful evening. Highly recommended if you can book an evening concert or visit the music museum and shop by daytime. I forgot to ask if I could see the Cellar restaurant. Yes, there's more - must go back.

(See also previous post on Finchcocks Musical Museum.)

Finchcocks Musical Museum
East Sussex

www.finchcocks.co.uk
Angela Lansbury BA Hons is an author, photographer and speaker.