The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial World, 1800-1930

Description

Art and money, culture and commerce, have long been seen as uncomfortable bedfellows. Indeed, the connections between them have tended to resist full investigation, particularly in the musical sphere. The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial World, 1800-1930, is a collection of essays that present fresh insights into the ways in which art music, i.e., classical music, functioned beyond its newly established aesthetic purpose (art for art's sake) and intersected with commercial agendas in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century culture. Understanding how art music was portrayed and perceived in a modernizing marketplace, and how culture and commerce interacted, are the book's main goals. In this volume, international scholars from musicology and other disciplines address a range of unexplored topics, including the relationship of sacred music with commerce in the mid nineteenth century, the role of music in urban cultural development in the early twentieth, and the marketing of musical repertories, performers and instruments across time and place, to investigate what happened once art music began to be understood as needing to exist within the wider framework of commercially oriented culture. Historical case studies present contrasting topics and themes that not only vary geographically and ideologically but also overlap in significant ways, pushing back the boundaries of the 'music as commerce' discussion. Through diverse, multidisciplinary approaches, the volume opens up significant paths for conversation about how musical concepts, practices and products were shaped by interrelationships between culture and commerce. Frontcover Contents List of Figures List of Tables Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements A Note on Translations Bibliographic Abbreviations Introduction: The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial World Part I Publishers 1 Selling ‘Celebrity’: The Role of the Dedication in Marketing Piano Arrangements of Rossini’s Military Marches 2 Creating Success and Forming Imaginaries: The Innovative Publicity Campaign for Puccini’s La bohème 3 Novello, John Stainer and Commercial Opportunities in the Nineteenth- Century British Amateur Music Market Part II Personalities 4 Jenny Lind, Illustration, Song and the Relationship between Prima Donna and Public 5 A German in Paris: Richard Wagner and the Masking of Commodification Nicholas Vazsonyi 6 Conductors and Self-Promotion in the British Nineteenth-Century Marketplace Part III Instruments 7 ‘What the Piano[la] Means to the Home’: Advertising of Conventional and Player Pianos in the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal, 1914–17 8 Art, Commerce and Artisanship: Violin Culture in Britain, c. 1880–1920 Part IV Repertories 9 Read All About It! Ancient Greek Music Hits American Newspapers, 1875–1938 10 Selling a ‘False Verdi’ in Victorian London Part V Settings 11 Schicht, Hauptmann, Mendelssohn and the Consumption of Sacred Music in Leipzig 12 The Business of Music on the Peripheries of Empire: A Turn-of-the-Century Case Study 13 ‘Disguised Publicity’ and the Performativity of Taste: Musical Scores in French Magazines and Newspapers of the Belle Époque Index