Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music

by Rachel Cowgill, Julian Rushton

Overview

This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351567633
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/05/2017
Series:	Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Julian Rushton

Table of Contents

List of Figures, List of Tables, Appendices, and Musical Examples, Notes on Contributors, List of Abbreviations Used in Notes and Contributor Biographies, Introduction, The Editors, Part I. Europe: Continental Connections, 1. ‘Hence, base intruder, hence’: Rejection and Assimilation in the Early English Reception of Mozart’s Requiem, 2. William Sterndale Bennett and the Bach Revival in Nineteenth-Century England, 3. ‘Le roi est mort, vive le roi’: Languages and Leadership in Niecks’s Liszt Obituary, 4. Promotion through Performance: Liszt’s Symphonic Poems in the London Concerts of Walter Bache, 5. Henry Hugo Pierson and Shakespearean Tragedy, 6. ‘The Italians are Coming’: Opera in Mid-Victorian Dublin, Part II. Empire: Britain, Ireland, and Beyond, 7. Sir Frederick Bridge and the Musical Furtherance of the 1902 Imperial Project, 8. Attwood’s St David’s Day: Music, Wales, and War in 1800, 9. Hamish MacCunn: A Scottish National Composer?, 10. For the Sake of the Union: The Nation in Stanford’s Fourth Irish Rhapsody, 11. ‘From ocean to ocean …’: How Harriss and Mackenzie Toured British Music Across Canada in 1903, 12. From ‘incomprehensibility’ to ‘meaning’: Transcription and Representation of Non-Western Music in Nineteenth-Century British Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Part III. Spectacle: Theatre, Opera, and Internationalism, 13. ‘Behind thy veil close-drawn’: Elgar, The Crown of India, and the Feminine ‘Other’, 14. Empire and ‘Orient’ in Opera Libretti set by Sir Henry Bishop and Edward Solomon, 15. Acting with Music: Henry Irving’s Use of the Musical Score in his Production of The Bells, 16. Handel’s Acis and Galatea: A Victorian View, 17. Blackface Minstrels, Black Minstrels, and their Reception in England, Index

Editorial Reviews

’...an excellent addition to the growing corpus of symposia about musical life in 19th-century Britain.... It is well documented and produced, and it is yet another gratifying example of Ashgate's strong support of British music studies.’ NABMSA Newsletter ’... interesting and wide-ranging, of use to the general scholar of British studies and the music scholar alike... All of the essays [...] are of great interest and well written.’ Journal of British Studies ’Here is another fascinating addition to Ashgate's incrementally rewarding series examining music in 19th-century Britain... enjoyable and enlightening... it is to Cowgill and Rushton's credit that the assembled contributions [...] interlock and cross-fertilise themselves, building a latticework of references and ideas that serve to enlarge and illuminate each other... an informative and stimulating book that has as much to tell us about the here-and-now as about the past.’ Classical Music (4 stars rating) ’This stimulating volume is appropriately dedicated to the memory of the economic and music historian Cyril Ehrlich, whose work and personality inspired the younger generations of scholars engaged in developing the new approaches and topics demonstrated here.’ Victorian Studies ’... this collection is a fine addition to studies of this period and place, and at its best offers fruitful examples of how British music studies can continue to grow while expanding the intellectual hinterland.’ Music and Letters

From the Publisher