Bravo Emma! Music in the life and work of CharlesDarwin

J.F. Derry*

Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Labs, King’s Buildings, West

Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, Scotland, UK

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The long-term marital dance of Emma and Charles Dar-win was set to the routine beat of an almost daily pianorecital. Emma was a proficient pianist, and so a qualityinstrument was a welcome and appropriate house-warming present for their first marital home in London.That same piano accompanied the Darwins on theirmove to Downe before being upgraded for a newermodel, which is still there, whilst another, cheaper pianomay have played in Charles Darwin’s work, particularlyon earthworms. Whilst he lamented his own lack ofmusicality, Darwin revelled in his wife’s prowess, acapacity that he recognised could be inherited, not leastthrough observation of his own children. The evolutionof musicality, he reasoned, was rooted in sexual attrac-tion as a form of communication that precededlanguage.

IntroductionWhilst Charles Darwin was instrumental in changing thecourse of human knowledge, Emma was undoubtedly hisaccompanist (Figure 1). They were married on 29 January1839 at St Peter’s Church, Maer in Staffordshire. Shortlyafterwards, Emma’s first personal piano had been gifted toher from her father, likely as a house-warming present forthe new marital home; she wrote about it to her sisterElizabeth Wedgwood in February 1839, recording how sheand her new husband ‘‘went slopping through the meltedsnow to Broadwood’s, where we tried the pianoforte and itsounded beautiful as far as we could judge. . .I like itparticularly in every way, and never heard a [pianoforte]I admired more. We hope to have it home today’’ [1].

The choice was a good one. Broadwood was a highlyreputable make: in 1840, Queen Victoria married PrinceAlbert and they also bought a Broadwood for BuckinghamPalace [2]. Emma’s cost £101 10s [3] and was one of threepossible models: the Boudoir (trichord) from 1832 was 70 600

long and 30 1000 wide and spanned 6 octaves from F to F; thesimilar Semi also from 1832 was a little smaller at 60 1100 by30 900; and the larger Bichorda produced in 1836 measured70 800 by 40 100 with a range of 6 1/2 octaves from C to G [2].

Pianos were to feature almost daily in the following 43years of their marriage, in London and at Downe in Kent.This instrument would provide not only a much appreci-ated focus for recreation in the evenings and one to betaught to the children, it was also an experimental appar-atus for Charles’ work and undoubtedly a strong stimulus

*Tel.: +44 131 650 8667; fax: +44 131 650 6564.Derry, J.F. (j.derry@ed.ac.uk)

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for his ideas on the evolution of musicality and sexualselection.

Exposition: house musicThe newlyweds established their London home overChristmas 1838 at 12 Upper Gower Street, tucked betweenRegent’s Park and Russell Square and described by Fran-cis Darwin as ‘‘a small common-place London house, with adrawing-room in the front, and a small room behind, inwhich they lived for the sake of quietness. In later yearsmyfather used to laugh over the surpassing ugliness of thefurniture, carpets &c., of the Gower Street house. The onlyredeeming feature was a better garden than most Londonhouses have, a strip as wide as the house, and 30 yardslong. Even this small space of dingy grass made theirLondon house more tolerable to its two country-bredinhabitants’’ [4]. With similar sentiment, Francis’ sisterHenrietta gave a littlemore detail on the Broadwood piano,plus a tantalising hint of future instruments. ‘‘I rememberit well in its handsomemahogany case; it kept its beauty oftone longer than any later piano. For the sake of quiet theylived, grand piano and all, in the smallish back roomlooking on the garden, which smoky though it was, wasa great boon to their country souls’’ [1].

Emma’s Broadwood accompanied them to Kent whenthey moved there in 1842. Down House is set in a 16-acreestate on the edge of the village of Downe, being what youmight call a country villa. It was built in the eighteenthcentury and extended in the nineteenth: a three-storey bayon the garden front in 1843, a new drawing room in 1858, averandah in 1872 and a new study at the northern end ofthe house in 1876. However, in honour of Charles Darwin’sgreat achievements accomplished therein, the old studyhas since been reinstated and reconstructed.

The drawing room renovation coincided with the pur-chase of a new Broadwood. On 22 February 1858 Emmarecorded in her diary, she had selected the new instrument– ‘‘P.F. chosen’’ – and it reached DownHouse 5 days later—‘‘A grand new Pianoforte has just arrived,’’ as Charlesannounced. It was a ‘Patent Repetition Bichorda Grand’Broadwood,measuring 60 800 by 40400, with 6 3/4 octaves fromC to A and dating from 1854. This Wornum & Sons piececost the Darwins £75 5s. Later, in May 1870, she alsoacquired an Erard, Franz Liszt’s favoured make [5] andtour sponsor, for £141.

Upon Emma’s death in 1896, the family sold DownHouse and cleared or sold on all its contents. Between1907 and 1922, the house was used as a girl’s boardingschool, but was bought by surgeon Sir George Buckston

d. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2009.01.005

Figure 1. Watercolour portrait of Emma Darwin from 1840 by George Richmond.

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Browne (1850–1945) in 1927 and shortly after handed overto the British Association for the Advancement of Science(BAAS) to be preserved as a Darwin museum, whichopened in June 1929. The new museum managed to traceone of Emma’s pianos – the 1854 Broadwood – to theChurch of Humanity, formally the Positivist Society [6],at 19 Chapel St. in London and bought it from them for £20.It has remained at Down House ever since, passed throughthe hands of The Royal College of Surgeons (1953–1996)and now conserved by English Heritage, meaning that thepiano now displayed in the Down House drawing-room issenior to the 150-year old On The Origin of Species [7].

There, it has been seen by thousands of visitors over theyears and some have even played it. In 1964, for instance,the caretaker at the house gave sixth-form students thefreedom of the house. ‘‘Several of the pupils, for example,were allowed to play Emma Darwin’s piano, as she used todo when Charles Darwin lay on the couch next to her,’’recalls Julie Earl, a pupil at Drayton Manor GrammarSchool. ‘‘I for one was struck by the wonderful atmospherethis piano-playing created.’’ [8].

Development: sole musicLeonard Darwin left us a glimpse into those restful eve-nings in Down House (Figure 2), and a privileged insightinto his father’s humble personality [9].

I wish I could paint in words a picture of my fatherlying quietly on the sofa in the drawing-room, whilstmy mother was playing, and playing beautifully,some slow movement of Beethoven. Little was said,but I am sure that themusic was not without effect on

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my father’s mind. And if what he had thus gained hadgone out of his mind when he was writing his auto-biography, the explanation is to be found in themodesty of his nature, which led him to concentratehis attention on possible defects in his own characterand to ignore probable merits.

This modesty bound Charles to admit in his autobio-graphy that he had always been very unmusical. ‘‘I am soutterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord,or keep time and hum a tune correctly,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Mymusical friends soon perceived my state, and sometimesamused themselves by making me pass an examination,which consisted in ascertaining how many tunes I couldrecognise, when they were played rather more quickly orslowly than usual. ‘God save the King,’ when thus played,was a sore puzzle.’’ Nevertheless, this early exposure tomusic whilst at Edinburgh clearly gave him ‘‘a strong tastefor music’’. Subsequently, whilst at Cambridge, he used totime his walks so as to hear the anthems issuing fromKing’s College chapel on weekdays. ‘‘This gave me intensepleasure, so thatmy backbonewould sometimes shiver,’’ hewrote.

In later life, Charles’ appreciation of music may havelessened, as one visitor to Down House recalled [10]:

After the family’s late dinner was over it was Mr.Darwin’s habit to take a little rest, and then to jointhe family in the drawing room. Mrs. Darwin andseveral of the children were very fond of music, andthe grand pianowas in very frequent use. I have oftenwatched Mr. Darwin sitting by, with an inquiringexpression on his face, as a sonata of Mozart orBeethoven, or a nocturne of Chopin’s was beingplayed.

I remember well his saying, ‘‘When I was young andafter we had been for some time married, I took greatpleasure in hearing music, and I was a good listener.But by degrees, and as I became more and moreabsorbed in scientific observation, the taste for musiclessened and fell off. I really believe the musicaldepartment of my brain became atrophied from wantof use. I have often lamented it since, but it has gonetoo far to recall now. Depend upon it, it is a greatmistake to lose interest in any art or hobby by disuse.’’

Francis later remembered his father expressing asimilar regret. ‘‘He used to lament that his love of musichad become dimmed with age,’’ he wrote in around 1884 ina draft of Reminiscences of My Father’s Everyday Life. But,he added, ‘‘his love of a good tune was strong.’’

From his want of ear he was unable to recognise atune when he heard it again; but he remained con-stant to the tunes he liked and would say, ‘‘That is afine thing (or a good tune?).’’ ‘‘What is it?’’ He likedespecially bits of Beethoven’s symphonies and bits ofHandel. He enjoyedEffie’s singing extremely andwasmuch touched by such songs as Sullivan’s ‘‘Will hecome.’’ He was pathetically humble about his owntaste and seemed pleased when he found othersagreed with him. [11].

Figure 2. ‘‘Late Autumn’’ by the Russian artist V. Evstafieff, showing Emma at her Broadwood playing to Charles. Reproduced with the kind permission of English Heritage.

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Recapitulation: experimental musicA self-confessed lack of musicality did not prevent musicfrom influencing his work. He clearly considered musical-ity an inherited trait, suggesting that his daughter Annieshowed her mother’s aptitude for the piano. He even wovethis argument into the Origin as he attempted to grapplewith the elusive mechanism of inheritance:

If we suppose any habitual action to become inher-ited-and I think it can be shown that this does some-times happen-then the resemblance between whatoriginally was a habit and an instinct becomes soclose as not to be distinguished. If Mozart, instead ofplaying the pianoforte at three years old with won-derfully little practice, had played a tune with nopractice at all, he might truly be said to have done soinstinctively. But it would be the most serious errorto suppose that the greater number of instincts havebeen acquired by habit in one generation, and thentransmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations[12].

Charles also used the piano in his now famous explora-tion of the sensory abilities of earthworms [13], possibly

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using the cheaper Erard piano, if Emma’s Broadwood wasconsidered too precious.

Worms do not possess any sense of hearing. They tooknot the least notice of the shrill notes from a metalwhistle,whichwas repeatedly soundednear them; nordid they of the deepest and loudest tones of a bassoon.Theywere indifferent to shouts, if care was taken thatthe breath did not strike them.When placed on a tableclose to the keys of a piano, whichwas played as loudlyas possible, they remained perfectly quiet.

This and other simple experiments allowed Charles toconclude that worms ‘‘cannot be said to see, although theycan just distinguish between light and darkness; they arecompletely deaf, and have only a feeble power of smell; thesense of touch alone is well developed.’’ In the light of suchmeagre talents, it was ‘‘surprising that they should exhibitsome skill in lining their burrows with their castings andwith leaves, and in the case of some species in piling uptheir castings into tower-like constructions,’’ he wrote.‘‘But it is far more surprising that they should apparentlyexhibit some degree of intelligence instead of a mere blindinstinctive impulse, in their manner of plugging up themouths of their burrows.’’

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Other musical notes played throughout Charles’ work.Ultimately, he saw functional structures for sound pro-duction as an adaptive, heritable trait whilst the appreci-ation of these sounds (usually by females) permitted sexualselection. ‘‘[U]nless the females were able to appreciatesuch sounds and were excited or charmed by them, thepersevering efforts of the males, and the complex struc-tures often possessed by them alone, would be useless; andthis it is impossible to believe’’ [14].

Charles saw a natural progression from sound pro-duction through to language development, such thatexpressive sounds would have arisen from an ancientvocabulary. ‘‘The sensations and ideas thus excited in usby music, or expressed by the cadences of oratory, appearfrom their vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions tothe emotions and thoughts of a long-past age,’’ he wrote inThe Descent of Man. ‘‘I conclude that musical notes andrhythm were first acquired by the male or female progeni-tors of mankind for the sake of charming the oppositesex. . .[I]t appears probable that the progenitors of man,either the males or females or both sexes, before acquiringthe power of expressing their mutual love in articulatelanguage, endeavoured to charm each other with musicalnotes and rhythm.’’ [14].

CodaWhilst one of Emma’s pianos – her second Broadwoodmadein 1854 and purchased in 1858 – has been at Down Housesince it openedasamuseumin1929, the fate of theother twopianos is not so clear. The first Broadwood, the one Emmaand Charles bought for their new house in Upper GowerStreet, may have been given to Emma’s sister in around1873. According to Henrietta, ‘‘Elizabeth Wedgwood’s sighthad been failing more and more for some time, a privationshe bore with the utmost patience. But my mother usedoften to say how sad she felt it to come in and find her doingnothing,whenher life had been one of continual activity.Mymother gave her old Broadwood grand-piano, and to fill upsome of her weary useless time helped her to learn by heartsimple airs to play to herself’’ [1]. An inventory of DownHouse performed following Charles’ death in 1882 revealsthat the Erard was still there then [15], though its where-abouts are no longer known.

Sadly, theDowne collection has no surviving sheetmusicnor instruments [16], such as Francis’ bassoon. The onlyother piece of relevant music furniture in Down Housetoday, included in the 1882 inventory, is a VictorianWalnutMusic Canterbury (mainly used for storing sheet music),leaving Emma’s second Broadwood to take centre stage.

AcknowledgementsThanks to Randal Keynes for all his excellent work at Down House, andfor helping unravel Darwin’s personality and family life; Cathy Power

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and Annie Kemkaran-Smith for looking into the Down House archives;Finchcocks Musical Museum for advice on piano makes; Peter Arnott forhis research into the ‘‘Mendel.’’ story; and Fiona Alexander, violinist withthe Scottish Chamber Orchestra, for proof reading with a musician’s eye.

References1 Litchfield, H. (ed.) (1915) In Emma Darwin, A Century of Family

Letters, 1792–1896 (Vol. 2), John Murray, (London2 John Broadwood & Sons. see http://www.uk-piano.org/broadwood/3 As an indication of the pianoforte’s increasing popularity and

Broadwood’s reputation for quality instruments, a Broadwood grandin rosewood cost just 155 guineas in 1848. David Wainright (1982)Broadwood by Appointment: A History. Quiller Press

4 Darwin, F. (ed.) (1887) The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,Including an Autobiographical Chapter, John Murray, (London

5 Program notes: Paris in the 19th Century, Sunday, October 3, 2004, 3pm, Chan Centre, UBC

6 Argyrou, V. (2005) The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology,Ecology and Postcoloniality. Berghahn Books

7 Darwin, C. (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of NaturalSelection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle forLife. John Murray

8 Earl, J. (1964) A visit to down house. Phoenix (Drayton ManorGrammar School, December, 1964), 10

9 Darwin, L. (1929) Memories of Down House. The Nineteenth Century106, pp. 118–123

10 Nash, W. (1919) A lawyer’s life on two continents. Boston: Richard G.Badger, The Gorham Press

11 Darwin, F. (c.1884) [Preliminary draft of]Reminiscences of My Father’sEveryday Life. CUL-DAR140.3.1-159

12 On the subject of inheritance, there is a wonderfully tantalising entryin Emma Darwin’s diary for Monday, 26th November, 1866 (availablehttp://darwin-online.org.uk/EmmaDiaries.html) which reads ‘‘Mendel.ottett !! Wilhelmj Pop. concert’’. It has been suggested that GregorMendel could have sent copies of his work to Darwin because he greatlyadmired him, but none, nor record of any, has ever been found amongstDarwin’s library (Nino Strachey, former Curator, DownHouse, cited in‘Sclater 2006. The extent of Charles Darwin’s knowledge of Mendel.Journal of Bioscience 31: 191-3). But, does Emma’s diary full ofshorthand and codes suggest that they actually met? Alas, no. Thatevening they were to simply enjoy a concert of Mendelssohn’s Octet inE-flat major, Op. 20, about which Emma was clearly excited usingdouble exclamation marks. This series of ‘‘Monday Popular Concerts’’was particularly auspicious. Advertised in The Times and attended byPrince Leopold, it was to be held at London’s principal concert venue,St. James’ Hall. It was also the first English tour for the 21-year oldviolin soloist, a prodigy hailed as the ‘‘German Paganini’’, AugustDaniel Ferdinand Victor Wilhelmj (1845–1908). The concert wasalso to include Beethoven’s Romance in F, and Mendelssohn’s CMinor Trio performed with Charles Halle (pianoforte) and Piatti(violoncello) (The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol.42, No. 700, June 1, 1901, pp. 369–374. Musical Times PublicationsLtd.). The tour was a sensation. The only criticism from the press,levied by the The Morning Post, suggested an alternative spelling forthe violinist, ‘‘Wilhelmi would be more simple and intelligible toEnglish eyes’’

13 Darwin, C. (1881) The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through theAction of Worms, with Observations on their Habits. John Murray,(London)

14 Darwin, C. (1871) The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.(2nd ed. 1882), John Murray

15 Kemkaran-Smith, A. English Heritage, personal communication16 Power, C. English Heritage, personal communication