Cannons (house) - Art and Music

Art and Music

Chandos began collecting paintings before Cannons was built. Chandos, who had good contacts in the art market in the Netherlands, sometimes bought works unseen, relying on the judgement of his agents. One of the difficulties he faced in acquiring the best continental art was that the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which was a key factor in his great wealth, also made it more difficult to import art directly from Italy. Even so, his collection of Italian paintings included some of the great masters. Chandos also commissioned painters directly, for example, the portraitists Michael Dahl and Sir Godfrey Kneller, and the decorative painters Antonio Bellucci, Louis Laguerre and William Kent who worked on the interiors of the house. Chandos was a patron of the sculptors Grinling Gibbons and John Nost.

Chandos maintained a musical establishment; some of the musicians are known to have doubled as household servants but even so, musical standards were very high. The music director for twenty years was the German composer Johann Christoph Pepusch. He wrote a number of pieces of church music for the Cannons chapel. The size of the musical establishment at Cannons declined in the 1720s in response to the family's losses in the South Sea Bubble, a financial crash which took place in 1720.

By far the most famous musician associated with Cannons is George Frideric Handel. He attracted the patronage of noblemen such as Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and he was based at Burlington House before becoming Cannons’ resident composer from 1717 to 1718. It has been suggested that the move to Cannons was related to the fact that in 1717 there was reduced demand for his services in central London because operatic productions were experiencing a downturn.

Chandos had a taste for Italianate music and in 1719 became a patron of Handel's opera company in London. At Cannons, as well as employing continental musicians as composers, he also engaged continental instrumentalists. The singers, on the other hand, seem to have been mainly English, rather than the highly-trained and expensive Italians who were the stars of the London opera scene.