Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist and book donor to the British Museum. He was a close friend and supporter of Joseph Haydn.
Early life and career
Charles Burney was born at Raven Street, Shrewsbury, the fourth of six children of James Macburney (1678–1749), a musician, dancer and portrait painter, and his second wife Ann (née Cooper, c. 1690–1775). In childhood he and a brother Richard (1723–1792) were for unknown reasons sent to the care of a "Nurse Ball" at nearby Condover, where they lived until 1739. He began formal education at Shrewsbury School in 1737 and was later sent in 1739 to The King's School, Chester, where his father then lived and worked. His first music master was a Mr Baker, the cathedral organist, and a pupil of Dr John Blow. Returning to Shrewsbury at the age of 15, Burney continued his musical studies for three years under his half-brother, James Burney, organist of St Mary's Church, and was then sent to London as a pupil of Dr Thomas Arne for three years.
Burney wrote some music for Thomson's Alfred, which was produced at Drury Lane Theatre on 30 March 1745. In 1749 he was appointed organist of St Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street, with a salary of £30 a year. According to the voting book, he secured the post against six other candidates with votes 50 to 4. He was also engaged to take the harpsichord in the "New Concerts" then recently established at the King's Arms, Cornhill. It was for his health that he went in 1751 to Lynn Regis in Norfolk, where he was elected organist, with an annual salary of £100. He lived there for nine years. During that time he began to entertain the idea of writing a general history of music. His Ode for St Cecilia's Day was performed at Ranelagh Gardens in 1759. In 1760 he returned to London in good health and with a young family. His eldest child, Esther, a girl of eight, surprised the public with her achievements as a harpsichord player. The concertos for harpsichord which Burney published soon after his return to London were much admired. In 1766 he produced, at Drury Lane, a translation and adaptation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's opera Le Devin du village, under the title of The Cunning Man.
Family and social life
In 1749, while working as an organist and harpsichordist in London, Charles married Esther Sleepe (c.1725-1762). The couple had six children: Esther or Hetty, who later became Mrs Burney on marrying her cousin Charles Rousseau Burney, the explorer James Burney, the celebrated writer Frances Burney (often called Fanny), the correspondent Susan (Susy), Charlotte (later Mrs Francis), and Charles Burney, a classicist and school headmaster.
As vividly recorded by Fanny, the family moved in a lively cultural circle in London, which included the portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the composers Harriet Wainwright and Joseph Haydn, the essayist Edmund Burke and the MP for Southwark Henry Thrale, whose wife Hester Thrale was a close friend of Fanny's.
Charles's first wife Esther died in 1761. In 1767 he was married a second time, to Elizabeth Allen (Mrs Stephen Allen) of Lynn. From this union he had a son, Richard Thomas, and a daughter, Sarah Harriet Burney, who became a novelist.