MUSIC AND BRITISH CULTURE 1785-1914: Essays in Honour of Cyril
Ehrlich.
Edited by Christina Bashford and Learne Langley. Oxford 2000. ISBN 0-19-816730-X
£60.00
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Interest in music in 19th Century Britain is booming. Your reviewer has attended
(and addressed) conferences on it in 1997 and 1999 and there has been much
new research and writing thereon, most recently this festschrift for Cyril
Ehrlich, of varied, carefully researched essays. Perhaps a subject like the
Calcutta piano trade in the late 1700s is of peripheral, albeit unusual,
interest, but several essays deal with important aspects of the London concert
and operatic scene during the period identified. The early performances of
Mozart operas in London depended on middle-class, rather than aristocratic
patronage; the aristocracy preferred Italian opera and another essay looks
at the effect its audiences (and the critics) had on performing practice.
We hear about the programmes of concert series like John Ella's long-lived
Musical Union, Edward Dannreuther's Orme Square venture, the programmes at
the Royal Academy and Royal College in the 1880s, whose differences inter
se are fascinating, and the work of the Society for British Musicians
(1834-1865) for native musicians and composers. A study of Michael Costa
and August Manns contrasts their methods and repertoire; they raised,
dramatically, standards of conducting in Britain and surely paved the way
for the achievements of Henry Wood and later British exponents. Other
personalities discussed include: Samuel Wesley and his career as a professional
musician; Mendelssohn, whose earlier visits to this country played a substantial
part in assimilating his Jewish and Christian sides; Lucy Broadwood and her
work for English folk song, often overlooked though we remember Cecil Sharp,
Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams; and John Sainbury of the Dictionary,
an odd volume inextricably enlarged with harpist-composer Bochsa, the recently
established RAM and British pride in their musical achievement. Nor is provincial
development ignored. We have pieces on the Ulster Hall, musicians in Manchester
1860-1914 and the start of the Welsh choral tradition. And the vexed question
of the interface between professional and amateur musicians is tackled. The
text includes 17 illustrations, 15 tables and, confined to the Mendelssohn
and Broadwood articles, 12 musical examples The book, as one would expect,
is beautifully produced. The price may rule out purchase for some but this
is essential reading for all interested in the 19th Century British musical
scene.
Philip Scrowcroft
