views

THE HISTORY OF THE PIANO Queen Victoria and Prince Albert installed pianos in the private apartments of all their residences. Together they played arrangements of overtures and symphonies, and accompanied each other in song. This particular elaborately decorated instrument was intended as a showpiece for the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. © Credits: rct.uk The gilded case is decorated in the French early eighteenth-century style with cherubs and singeries – comical scenes involving monkeys playing musical instruments and making mischief. Queen Victoria had owned a piano decorated in a similar manner almost twenty years earlier. In her diary of 5 March 1839, she wrote, 'Lord Melbourne admired the new painted piano I have in the drawing-room, and said, 'I like those monkeys on it.' The piano, an S & P Erard, was first purchased by Queen Victoria in 1856. It is made of mahogany, satinwood and pine, with brass and gilt bronze mounts, gilded and varnished....

The Queen's Christmas Day speech has been slammed on social media for being "out of touch" and disrespectful to families "struggling to make ends meet". In her annual address, broadcast at 3pm today. the head of state talked about Brexit and austerity. But she also praised the Comonwealth for "the bonds of affection it promotes, and a common desire to live in a better, more peaceful world.                                                                                                                        ...