Exhibitions, Music and the British Empire

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-78327-673-8
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 30, 264 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Reihe: Music in Britain, 1600-2000

Combining approaches from reception studies and historical musicology, this book demonstrates how the representation of music at exhibitions drew the press and public into debates about music's role in society.

International exhibitions were among the most significant cultural phenomena of the late nineteenth century. These vast events aimed to illustrate, through displays of physical objects, the full spectrum of the world's achievements, from industry and manufacturing, to art and design. But exhibitions were not just visual spaces. Music was ever present, as a fundamental part of these events' sonic landscape, and integral to the visitor experience.

This book explores music at international exhibitions held in Australia, India, and the United Kingdom during the 1880s. At these exhibitions, music was codified, ordered, and all-round 'exhibited' in manifold ways. Displays of physical instruments from the past and present were accompanied by performances intended to educate or to entertain, while music was heard at exhibitors' stands, in concert halls, and in the pleasure gardens that surrounded the exhibition buildings. Music was depicted as a symbol of human artistic achievement, or employed for commercial ends. At times it was presented in nationalist terms, at others as a marker of universalism. This book argues, by interrogating the multiple ways that music was used, experienced, and represented, that exhibitions can demonstrate in microcosm many of the broader musical traditions, purposes, arguments, and anxieties of the day. Its nine chapters focus on sociocultural themes, covering issues of race, class, public education, economics, and entertainment in the context of music, tracing these through the networks of communication that existed within the British Empire at the time.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kirby, Sarah

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Australische und Pazifische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Sinfonische Musik & Ensembles
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
1. Exhibiting Music
2. The Musical Object
3. Sounding Instruments
4. Museums and the History of Music
5. Performance, Rational Recreation, and Music for 'Progress'
6. Music for Leisure and Entertainment
7. Nationalism and Music
8. Curating Non-Western Music
9. Performing Non-Western Music
Conclusion: Exhibitions and Their Musical Legacies
Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Kirby, Sarah
SARAH KIRBY is an Australian musicologist based in Melbourne.