HARS Beethoven Concert

[atherleisure]

A couple of weeks ago, the Houston Area Regency Society was invited to a private Beethoven piano concert. There were about a dozen attendees at an excellent house party that included a light meal, an hour concert, and cards until we had to break up. About half of the attendees were regular HARS members, and half were other guests of our host and pianist. It was a lot of fun and felt like it fit with novel descriptions of house parties except that we were not served our dinner, it was buffet-style. Compromises are required for modern life, right? Still, it was an excellent afternoon and evening.









As you can see, we even managed to take pictures. The date range for the event was 1781 to 1827, and I chose to go with the early end of the range. I even managed to ask Kaycee to take pictures of me wearing my green-striped dress for the first time since I remade it. I also gave the ivory silk petticoat its first wearing since I made it a year ago.









I was really pleased with how my hair came out.



I followed the setting instructions for one of the hairstyles in 18th Century Hair and Wig Styling (the Plume, I think). I didn't tease it, though, just used a rat and sort of half-combed the curls before pinning them over the rat. I was thrilled that it came out so well, even if my husband wanted me to promise him never to do that to my hair again! Apparently, he doesn't go for the 1780's aesthetic.

The concert got me thinking about things to do at private evening parties since we've had two this year. I think we need more music. Kaycee had a keyboard out at her party in January and offered to let nuranar and me play, but we didn't have enough notice to work anything up. My repertoire is heavily centered on the 1930's through 1950's so I would have to work something up. Now I need to figure out a way to do something like this, preferably by incorporating Ginger's vocal talents so I don't have to perform alone!

Comments

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

What a lovely evening! I don't think I realized that this was a private, in-home concert. That's extra exciting!

That dress is new to me; I like it. It's a very "you" dress. And your hair looks really good. LOL about your husband.

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

It was such a nice event. He says he does it every year so maybe next year you can come down for it.

I loved the fabric of the dress so much that I took apart the first attempt at the dress (which was my 2nd 18th century dress ever and my first attempt to scale something from Patterns of Fashion) and remade it. I fixed the sleeves after the concert so the shoulders aren't so square now. I'm glad you like it.

[mala-14.livejournal.com]

You look great! Seems like a really great event. And it's a nice change from something big, loud, and public.

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

It was a great event. We don't do a lot of big, loud stuff since we're a pretty small group, but it was nice because we could really mix around and talk to different people. And we had someone new join our group, which is always a bonus.

[theladyrebecca.livejournal.com]

You look so lovely! It sounds like a fun event!

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It was a lot of fun. I hated to have to tear myself away at the end.

[starlightmasque.livejournal.com]

You look so pretty! What an excellent gown and lovely evening with friends!

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You might have noticed I like green...