Search results

Start typing

A group surrounds a harpsichord playing instruments
Music in the Royal Collection

Many members of the royal family were talented musicians

JOHN YENN (1750-1821)

Design for the Music Room, Windsor Castle

dated 1794

RCIN 918690

The Music Room played an important role in the lives of the royal family at Windsor. In 1788 the Princess Royal wrote that ‘a love of music to distraction runs through our family’.

Music-making was part of their daily routine from the earliest years of the reign. Little is recorded of the furnishing and use of this room, apart from the fact that it contained a harpsichord (possibly Handel’s own instrument), and that in 1804 the king intended to have Roubiliac’s bust of Handel (possibly RCIN 35255) placed on a bracket above the chimneypiece on the west wall.

This design shows the proposed placement of the organ in the Music Room. Until the nineteenth century, all grand houses and certainly palaces would be equipped with an organ to provide not just church music but to accompany chamber music.


    The income from your ticket contributes directly to The Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The aims of The Royal Collection Trust are the care and conservation of the Royal Collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational activities.