RCM Museum Late: Research, Collections and Performance

Join us for an engaging evening with three RCM doctoral students as they share their research insights, enhanced by performances. Plus, take the opportunity to explore the RCM Museum collections not usually on display in the Museum Gallery.

Historical violinist Matthew Millkey contextualises the RCM Museum's remarkable decorated violin and bow through the presentation of little-known historical violin arrangements of 17th-century English division viol and lyra viol music. The presentation explores the development of the violin idiom around the turn of the 18th century through the lens of transcription practice.

Through an examination of contemporary documentary sources, Zsombor Tóth-Vajna addresses the reorganisation of major musical institutions following the English Restoration, which included the renewal of cathedral choirs as well as the re-establishment of the Chapel Royal and the choir of Westminster Abbey. Zsombor explores how musical training was structured and conducted within these institutions, which functioned as prominent centres of musical life.

Finally, Gergely Tóth-Vajna investigates the impact of the early English square piano on composers of the period, with a particular focus on Johann Christian Bach. The instrument emerged in England in the second half of the 18th century and, despite its historical significance, has largely been neglected in contemporary scholarship. Unlike the harpsichord, the square piano offered dynamic gradations of touch and a capacity for a more nuanced articulation, and its mechanical design provided both greater responsiveness and technical possibilities, which directly influenced compositional practices.