HANDEL'S UNDERWATER MUSIC: A BRUNELIAN SOIREE with the ROTHERHITHE & BERMONDSEY CHORAL SOCIETY

Event information

For Museums at Night opening night, we are delighted to welcome The Rotherhithe & Bermondsey Choral Society who will perform for you an entire Brunelian soirée:

Brunel was passionately fond of music, theatre and the opera. He married Mary Horsley, whose father William Horsley was an organist and composer. Many musicians visited the Horsley family, and young Mary kept an autograph album, signed by - amongst others - Brahms, Chopin, Paganini and Bellini. One visitor, Felix Mendelssohn, was very attentive, and Mary gave him flowers which he took back with him to Berlin! The Horsley family, in their drawing room, were the first people in England to hear his music for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The composer loved young Mary, but the engineer won her hand...

The Programme:

'See the Conqu'ring Hero Comes' by Handel, first played here at Brunel's underwater concert party held in the Thames Tunnel during its construction, in the 1820s.

Part songs by William Horsley, Brunel's father-in-law
'The Bermondsey Hymn' by Benjamin Milgrove
'The Lark' and 'The Nightingale' by Mendelssohn, Mary Brunel's sweetheart
Down by the Riverside (gospel, arr. Steve Hodges)

The performance begins with an adventurous descent into the underground chamber.

Dress warmly and be aware that access involves bending through a low, short tunnel and descending a solid scaffold staircase.

All seats now sold, standing room: £8.