The Triumph of Music

by Blanning, Tim

• ISBN13: 9780674057098
• ISBN10: 0674057090
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-15
• Publisher: Belknap Pr

Summary

A distinguished historian chronicles the rise of music and musicians in the West from lowly balladeers to masters employed by fickle patrons, to the great composers of genius, to todayrs"s rock stars. How, he asks, did music progress from subordinate status to its present position of supremacy among the creative arts? Mozart was literally booted out of the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg "with a kick to my arse," as he expressed it. Yet, less than a hundred years later, Europers"s most powerful ruler-Emperor William I of Germany-paid homage to Wagner by traveling to Bayreuth to attend the debut of The Ring. Today Bono, who was touted as the next president of the World Bank in 2006, travels the world, advising politicians-and they seem to listen.The path to fame and independence began when new instruments allowed musicians to showcase their creativity, and music publishing allowed masterworks to be performed widely in concert halls erected to accommodate growing public interest. No longer merely an instrument to celebrate the greater glory of a reigning sovereign or Supreme Being, music was, by the nineteenth century, to be worshipped in its own right. In the twentieth century, new technological, social, and spatial forces combined to make music ever more popular and ubiquitous.In a concluding chapter, Tim Blanning considers music in conjunction with nationalism, race, and sex. Although not always in step, music, society, and politics, he shows, march in the same direction.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Status: ‘You Are a God-Man, the True Artist by God's Grace'

The Musician as Slave and Servant

Handel, Haydn and the Liberation of the Musician

Mozart, Beethoven and the Perils of the Public Sphere

Rossini, Paganini, Liszt-the Musician as Charismatic Hero

Richard Wagner and the Apotheosis of the Musician

The Triumph of the Musician in the Modern World

Purpose: ‘The Most Romantic of All the Arts'

Louis XIV and the Assertion of Power

Opera and the Representation of Social Status

Bach, Handel and the Worship of God

Concerts and the Public Sphere

The Secularisation of Society, the Sacralisation of Music

The Romantic Revolution

Beethoven as Hero and Genius

Problems with the Public

Wagner and Bayreuth

The Invention of Classical Music

Jazz and Romanticism

Rock and Romanticism

Places and Spaces: From Palace to Stadium

Churches and Opera Houses

Concerts in Pubs and Palaces

Concert Halls and the Sacralisation of Music

Temples for Music

Two Ways of Elevating Music-Bayreuth and Paris

The Democratisation of Musical Space

Places and Spaces for the Masses

Technology: From Stradivarius to Stratocaster

Musical Gas and Other Inventions

Pianos for the Middle Classes

Valves, Keys and Saxophones

Recording

Radio and Television

The Electrification of Youth Culture

The Triumph of Technology

Liberation: Nation, People, Sex

National Pride and Prejudice

Rule Britannia? Aux Armes, Citoyens!

Liberation in Italy

Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, Especially on the Rhine

From the Woods and Fields of Bohemia

A Life for the Tsar

Race and Music

Sex

Conclusion

Chronology

Further Reading

Notes

Illustrations Credits

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.