A salon concert with social and light supper after, featuring Les Bougies Baroques, Solo Flute- Richard Austen and Tenor- Gareth Davies
About this event
Burgh House & 'Les Bougies Baroques' are proud to present 'A Queer Georgian Social Season' salon concert followed by a social & light supper, featuring 'Les Bougies Baroques’ (conducted from the harpsichord by Ian Peter Bugeja and led from the violin by Sam Kennedy), flute soloist Richard Austen, and tenor Gareth Davies., shedding light on:
Frederick II, ’The Great’ [& ‘The Queer’]
Join us at Burgh House for the continuation of our first annual Queer Georgian Social Season as we take you back to a time when queers were more visible and accepted than you thought.
Frederick II, ’The Great’ (1712-1786) – whose mother Sophia Dorothea of Hanover was the daughter of Britain's King George I & sister of King George II – was King of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. Other than being a great patron of the arts, he was also a talented musician & composer in his own right who played the transverse flute and composed a significant number of works, primarily for the flute.
It is almost certain that Frederick was primarily homosexual, and that his sexual orientation was central to his life. His father Frederick William I of Prussia – with whom Frederick II clashed frequently due to the fact that he was more interested in philosophy & music than war – cultivated an ideal of ultra-masculinity in his court and derided his son’s ‘effeminate’ tendencies, to the point where rumours of liaisons between his son & his page (Peter Karl Christoph von Keith) and between his son & a Lieutenant of the Prussian army (Hans Hermann von Katte) led to the page’s dismissal and the Lieutenant’s execution (although King Frederick William I’s suspicion that Frederick II's relationship with Hans Hermann von Katte was romantic may have played a role in Katte receiving a death sentence, the main reason for Katte’s execution was his involvement in Frederick II’s plot to escape from Prussia to Britain – possibly to defect to the service of the British King George II [his maternal uncle] and return to Prussia to depose his father).
Despite his arranged marriage with Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern (1715-1797), Frederick produced no children and was succeeded by his nephew. His favoured courtiers were almost exclusively male intellectuals (he spent much of his time at Sanssouci with a circle that was exclusively male, to the point that during Frederick's lifetime the phrase 'Les Potsdamistes' was used throughout Europe to describe homosexual courtiers), and he is known to have invited the French philosopher Voltaire to live with him at Sanssouci (with whom he eventually had a dramatic 'lover's quarrel’); he also penned an erotic poem for/to the Venetian philosopher Francesco Algarotti. The erotic artworks celebrating the homoerotic attachments of Greek Antiquity that fill his Palaces [and reflect his longing for homosexual relationships] are also difficult to ignore – the most significant of these being Charles Vanloo’s 'Ganymede’s introduction to Olympus’ (“the largest fresco in the largest room in his largest palace” according to Blanning, one of his biographers) at the Neues Palais in Potsdam.
This enlightening evening at Burgh House will feature performances of Frederick II’s instrumental music and excerpts from the operatic oeuvre of his Kapellmeister Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759), whose vast number of operas includes libretti penned by the multi-talented Frederick II – by 'Les Bougies Baroques', featuring queer headliners Ian Peter Bugeja (conductor-harpsichordist), Sam Kennedy (leader), Richard Austen (flute soloist), and Gareth Davies (tenor) – and will be followed by a social and light supper.
Doors and bar open: 7pm
Performance start time: 7:30pm
Tickets (includes light supper): £25, £20 concessions (for under 25s and Burgh House Members )
MUSICAL PROGRAMME:
FREDERICK II (1712-1786): Sinfonia No. 1 in G major [IF 29]
C.H. GRAUN (1704-1759): ‘Il tuo strale, o dolce amore' from ‘Coriolano' [WV B:I:20] (1749)
FREDERICK II: Sinfonia in A major [IF 27]
C.H. GRAUN: ‘Che affanno! … Ah che dovunque movo’ from ‘Merope' [WV B:I:18] (1748)
FREDERICK II: Flute Concerto No. 3 in C major [IF 4]
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