Prince Charles Edward Stuart and Music: A Lifelong Love

Citation

Baccolo S & Cunningham CE (2024) Prince Charles Edward Stuart and Music: A Lifelong Love. The Jacobite: Journal of the 1745 Association, (Summer).

Abstract
This article discusses Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s lifelong relationship with music, highlighting his notable virtuosity. Historians have paid much attention to this topic while studying the Prince’s youth. Yet they have never entirely explored his close connection with music throughout his life. Many biographers have also drawn their interpretation of Charles's musical connection from the heavily mythologised and Romanticised image of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ set at the time of the ’45, focussing on sources extracted from popular memory, folklore and legend gathered during his relatively short time in Great Britain. The authors argue that many writers have confused or misconstrued part of this musical connection, predominantly associating the Prince with instruments such as the bagpipes. This research exposes the significant role that Prince Charles Edward Stuart gave to music in building and managing his social relations and public image. It also demonstrates how Charles’s education as a European Prince shaped and influenced his passion for the arts that was shared by both Royalty and the Aristocracy, especially his love of Italian Baroque.

Journal
The Jacobite: Journal of the 1745 Association, Issue Summer

People

Dr Calum Cunningham

Tutor with Assessment & Student Feedback, History