Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn

Description

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the pace of London's concert life quickened dramatically, reflecting both the prosperity and the commercial vitality of the capital. The most significant development was the establishment of the public concert within the social and cultural life of fashionable society. The subscription concerts that premiered symphonies by J. C. Bach and Haydn were conspicuous symbols of luxury, even though they were promoted on broadly commercial lines. Drawing on hitherto untapped archival sources and a comprehensive study of daily newspapers, this book analyses audiences at venues as diverse as the Hanover Square Rooms, Vauxhall Gardens and City taverns. The musical taste of the London public is investigated in the light of contemporary theories of aesthetics, and there is detailed discussion of the financial and practical aspects of concert management and performance, in a period that encouraged enterprise and innovation.

"...lends the subject important new perspectives." Notes "...McVeigh's excellent book vastly increases our knowledge and understanding." Choice "Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn has been ingeniously constructed to read both as history and parable...Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn not only charts a period of exceptional growth, but it organizes an astonishing number of untapped sources to do so." Times Literary Supplement "...an exhaustive guide to concert performances in the latter half of the eighteenth century. This is an encyclopedic work assembled by a meticulous scholar...a guide of the first order." James H. Johnson, Journal of Modern History "The range of things taken up heighten awareness of what goes into the making of any musical culture." Key Reporter