Leading international scholars consider the socio-economic history of Classical and Romantic musicians.

The intricacies and challenges of musical performance have recently attracted the attention of writers and scholars to a greater extent than ever before. Research into the performer's experience has begun to explore such areas as practice techniques, performance anxiety and memorisation, as well as many other professional issues. Historical performance practice has been the subject of lively debate way beyond academic circles, mirroring its high profile in the recording studio and the concert hall. Reflecting the strong ongoing interest in the role of performers and performance, this History brings together research from leading scholars and historians and, importantly, features contributions from accomplished performers, whose practical experiences give the volume a unique vitality. Moving the focus away from the composers and onto the musicians responsible for bringing the music to life, this History presents a fresh, integrated and innovative perspective on performance history and practice, from the earliest times to today.

Lisa McCormick considers the history of classical music competitions and their role in society by examining their highlights and ongoing controversies. She explains why, despite a widespread belief that performances cannot be ranked, aspiring musicians still enter them, professionals still judge them, and audiences still invest emotionally in the results.

This book offers a novel interpretation of the sudden and steep decline of instrumental virtuosity in its critical reception between c. 1815 and c. 1850, documenting it with a large number of examples from Europe’s leading music periodicals at the time. The increasingly hostile critical reception of instrumental virtuosity during this period is interpreted from the perspective of contemporary aesthetics and philosophical conceptions of human subjectivity; the book’s main thesis is that virtuosity qua irreducibly bodily performance generated so much hostility because it was deemed incompatible with, and even threatening to, the new Romantic philosophical conception of music as a radically disembodied, abstract, autonomous art and, moreover, a symbol or model – if only a utopian one – of a similarly autonomous and free human subject, whose freedom and autonomy seemed increasingly untenable in the economic and political context of post-Napoleonic Europe. That is why music, newly reconceived as radically abstract and autonomous, plays such an important part in the philosophy of early German Romantics such as E. T. A. Hoffmann, Schelling, and Schopenhauer, with their growing misgivings about the very possibility of human freedom, and not so much in the preceding generation of thinkers, such as Kant and Hegel, who still believed in the (transcendentally) free subject of the Enlightenment. For the early German Romantics, music becomes a model of human freedom, if freedom could exist. By contrast, virtuosity, irredeemably moored in the perishable human body, ephemeral, and beholden to such base motives as making money and gaining fame, is not only incompatible with music thus conceived, but also threatens to expose it as an illusion, in other words, as irreducibly corporeal, and, by extension, the human subject it was meant to symbolise as likewise an illusion. Only with that in mind, may we begin to understand the hostility of some early to mid-19th-century critics to instrumental virtuosity, which sometimes reached truly bizarre proportions. In order to accomplish this, the book looks at contemporary aesthetics and philosophy, the contemporary reception of virtuosity in performance and composition, and the impact of 19th-century gender ideology on the reception of some leading virtuosi, male and female alike.

Music in the Women's Institute has become stereotyped by the ritualistic singing of Jerusalem at monthly meetings. Indeed, Jerusalem has had an important role within the organization, and provides a valuable means within which to assess the organization's relationship with women's suffrage and the importance of rurality in the Women's Institute's identity. However, this book looks beyond Jerusalem by examining the full range of music making within the organization and locates its significance within a wider historical-cultural context. The Institute's promotion of conducting - a regular part of its musical activity since the 1930s - is discussed within the context of embodying overtly feminist sentiments. Lorna Gibson concludes that a redefinition of the term 'feminism' is needed and the concept of 'gendered spheres' of conducting provides a useful means of understanding the Institute's policy. The organization's promotion of folk song is also examined and reveals the Institute's contribution to the Folk Revival, as well as providing a valuable context within which to understand the National Federation's first music commission, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (1950). This work, and the Institute's second commission, Malcolm Williamson's The Brilliant and the Dark (1969), are examined with the context of the organization's music policy. In addition to discussing the background to the works, issues of critical reception are addressed. The book concludes with an Epilogue about the National Society Choir (later known as the Avalon Singers), which tested the organization's commitment to amateur music making. The book is the result of meticulous work undertaken in the archives of the National Federation, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the V&A archives, the Britten-Pears Library, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Library, the Women's Library and the Newspaper Library.

The 1889 Exposition universelle in Paris is famous as a turning point in the history of French music, and modern music generally. This book explores the ways in which music was used, exhibited, listened to, and written about during the Exposition universelle. It also reveals the sociopolitical uses of music in France during the 19th century.

Charles Hall?as one of the leading musicians of the nineteenth century and intimate with almost all of the great composers and performers of his time, as well as a friend of the Royal Family and known as much as a pianist and chamber musician as a conductor, in London, throughout the country and abroad, in addition to Manchester. Robert Beale presents a new perspective on Hall? life and achievement, constructed mainly from primary sources, which serves to dispel many of the inaccuracies and omissions that have stemmed, to a great extent, from Hall? own autobiographical account of 1896. His edited memoirs omit much of the competition and controversy, struggles and disappointments of his career in Manchester, and, indeed, hardly convey the scope of his activities elsewhere. Hall?as a key figure in the shift from contemporary to ?classical? repertory in orchestral concerts and piano performance. Not only did he found the Manchester orchestra, in 1862-3 he also gave the first known cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas. His early annual ?recital? series in London marked a new era in the musical history of his time. The formation of the modern 'symphony orchestra' took place during the period of Hall? professional life, and he was a pioneer in the process, in both artistic and business terms. Having adopted the role of orchestral conductor when it was itself relatively novel, he became one of the acknowledged masters of the craft over four and half decades - as well as continuing to appear as solo pianist and chamber musician, and in addition he was enormously influential as musical pedagogue and educationist.

Philip Ross Bullock looks at the life and works of Rosa Newmarch (1857-1940), the leading authority on Russian music and culture in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. Although Newmarch's work and influence are often acknowledged - most particularly by scholars of English poetry, and of the role of women in English music - the full range of her ideas and activities has yet to be studied. As an inveterate traveller, prolific author, and polyglot friend of some of Europe's leading musicians, such as Elgar, Sibelius and Jan?k, Newmarch deserves to be better appreciated. On the basis of both published and archival materials, the details of Newmarch's busy life are traced in an opening chapter, followed by an overview of English interest in Russian culture around the turn of the century, a period which saw a long-standing Russophobia (largely political and military) challenged by a more passionate and well-informed interest in the arts Three chapters then deal with the features that characterize Newmarch's engagement with Russian culture and society, and - more significantly perhaps - which she also championed in her native England; nationalism; the role of the intelligentsia; and feminism. In each case, Newmarch's interest in Russia was no mere instance of ethnographic curiosity; rather, her observations about and passion for Russia were translated into a commentary on the state of contemporary English cultural and social life. Her interest in nationalism was based on the conviction that each country deserved an art of its own. Her call for artists and intellectuals to play a vital role in the cultural and social life of the country illustrated how her Russian experiences could map onto the liberal values of Victorian England. And her feminism was linked to the idea that women could exercise roles of authority and influence in society through participation in the arts. A final chapter considers how her late interest in the music of Czechoslovakia pi

Music in the Women's Institute has become stereotyped by the ritualistic singing of Jerusalem at monthly meetings. Indeed, Jerusalem has had an important role within the organization, and provides a valuable means within which to assess the organization's relationship with women's suffrage and the importance of rurality in the Women's Institute's identity. However, this book looks beyond Jerusalem by examining the full range of music making within the organization and locates its significance within a wider historical-cultural context. The Institute's promotion of conducting - a regular part of its musical activity since the 1930s - is discussed within the context of embodying overtly feminist sentiments. Lorna Gibson concludes that a redefinition of the term 'feminism' is needed and the concept of 'gendered spheres' of conducting provides a useful means of understanding the Institute's policy. The organization's promotion of folk song is also examined and reveals the Institute's contribution to the Folk Revival, as well as providing a valuable context within which to understand the National Federation's first music commission, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (1950). This work, and the Institute's second commission, Malcolm Williamson's The Brilliant and the Dark (1969), are examined with the context of the organization's music policy. In addition to discussing the background to the works, issues of critical reception are addressed. The book concludes with an Epilogue about the National Society Choir (later known as the Avalon Singers), which tested the organization's commitment to amateur music making. The book is the result of meticulous work undertaken in the archives of the National Federation, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the V&A archives, the Britten-Pears Library, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Library, the Women's Library and the Newspaper Library.

Professionalisation was a key feature of the changing nature of work and society in the nineteenth century, with formal accreditation, registration and organisation becoming increasingly common. Trades and occupations sought protection and improved status via alignment with the professions: an attempt to impose order and standards amid rapid social change, urbanisation and technological development. The structures and expectations governing the music profession were no exception, and were central to changing perceptions of musicians and music itself during the long nineteenth century. The central themes of status and identity run throughout this book, charting ways in which the music profession engaged with its place in society. Contributors investigate the ways in which musicians viewed their own identities, public perceptions of the working musician, the statuses of different sectors of the profession and attempts to manipulate both status and identity. Ten chapters examine a range of sectors of the music profession, from publishers and performers to teachers and military musicians, and overall themes include class, gender and formal accreditation. The chapters demonstrate the wide range of sectors within the music profession, the different ways in which these took on status and identity, and the unique position of professional musicians both to adopt and to challenge social norms.