The dawn of classical music

The new episode of my online book is now online. In it, I outline changes that happened late in the 18th and early in the 19th century, in the way that music was thought about. Amazingly, maybe, from our point of view, music wasn't considered a major art until this time. Before the concept of classical music, as we now know it, could evolve, the status of music had to change -- people had to decide that it was supremely important. Which they did, thanks to many factors, ranging from romanticism, German nationalism, and Beethoven, who as the historian Peter Gay writes, was "virtually deified."

Gay, by the way, starts The Naked Heart -- the fourth volume of his series of books about the bourgeois experience from Queen Victoria to Freud -- with a chapter on listening to music. It's an invaluable, and supremely readable, source for the change from 18th to 19th century listening -- from talking during musical performances to paying rapt attention. Much cited by musicologists, and absorbing reading for anyone. The book apparently is out of print, but I had no trouble getting a copy through one of the booksellers on Amazon.

September 25, 2006 11:11 AM | | Comments (0)

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Resources

Age of the Audience 
Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Reality: It used to be younger -- dramatically younger, in fact. Here's some evidence -- actual texts of old studies, links to NEA studies -- plus my blog posts on this subject. more

earlier resources

Things I like

Frank O'Hara... 
...or rather these lines from one of his poems, quoted today in the New York Times Book Review: more

The Ten-Cent Plague
 
To paraphrase the old quote about the Nazis: "They came for the comic books, but I didn't read comic books..." more

Improvisation Games
 
An inspired book... more

Elektra 1957
 
Seismic recording.  more

Carmen Sings Monk
 
It's piano music, but she'll sing it anyway...
more
more things

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Sandow published on September 25, 2006 11:11 AM.

Concert with dancing was the previous entry in this blog.

Met opening is the next entry in this blog.

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