Pleasure Gardens
London's pleasure gardens musical repertoire consisted of a variety of instrumental and vocal music. For instance, Vauxhall's entertainment program on June 30, 1787 consisted of an Overture by Bach, a full Overture by Haydn, an organ and violin concerto and a Symphony by Schmidt (Southgate, 1911, p. 148). Many renowned composers played during the garden's season, even composing and arranging special pieces specifically for these venues. In its early years, Vauxhall mainly offered instrumental music at several pavilions and stages. Once Ranelagh and other pleasure gardens incorporated vocal music into their entertainment program, Vauxhall followed this trend by hiring male and female solo vocalists as well. This change in the program caused some adjustments in the garden's architecture in order to present the soloist and band as a spectacle:
"Originally the instrumentalists had been seated in a circle, facing inward, at a round table (serving as a music stand) on the same level; by 1784, however, the band had turned to face forward, and then, to accommodate new tiered seating and music stands and to create space for a soloist, a dropped platform with a separate sounding-board had been added to the front, in the manner of an illuminated garden balcony" (Cowgill, 2012, p. 112).
Additionally, Vauxhall's music program served as a means to create and maintain the fantasy world's illusion and disbelief: so-called Subterranean Musicians were located in underground pits throughout the garden, concealed by bushes and trees, to create the illusion of musical bushes vibrant with fairy-music. Both Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens often organised river fêtes on the Thames, where musicians would play pieces, for instance Händel's Water Music, on boats (Southgate, 1911). Such diverse applications of music would later be lost in the nineteenth-century concert hall regime.
Thus, the musical entertainment offered at pleasure gardens was diverse and the evening's concert program often presented a mix of orchestra music and short vocal songs. Cowgill notes that it was a common practice at Vauxhall to promenade during the instrumental music and listen attentively to the short vocal performance. As the evening's musical program was displayed on a tree near the orchestra, visitors were able to study the program and create a routine of promenading and returning to the stage (Cowgill, 2012, page 118).
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