In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Music Trade in Georgian England ed. by Michael Kassler
  • Susan Wollenberg
The Music Trade in Georgian England. Ed. by Michael Kassler. pp. xviii + 560. (Ashgate, Farnham and Burlington, Vt., 2011, £60. ISBN 978-0-7546-6065-1.)

This admirable and exemplary volume belongs in a category markedly different from the musicological studies normally featured in the reviews section of musical journals. Its contents are primarily devoted to areas that could seem to lie outside the central concerns of musicology, but that in fact should be seen as utterly fundamental to our understanding of the musical culture of the past. Michael Kassler and his team of contributors have assembled detailed information from a wide range of sources in what ought surely to become an indispensable reference work on its subject.

The customary provision of ‘Notes on Contributors’ seems to be absent, but among the chapter authors Jenny Nex and David Rowland, in particular, are already well known for their contribution to British music studies; they have been enabled to present their research on their chosen topics in extenso within the generous format here. Michael Kassler himself has been energetic in contributing to the increasingly high profile of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain in recent musical scholarship. This latest publication complements the existing literature in new ways.

The nine chapters, arranged in four thematic sections, are concerned with such matters as company history, the technology of printing, and the development of legal controls over music publishing and dissemination. The intensive examination of these topics seems especially appropriate for Georgian England, for the music business showed spectacular growth during the period, together with the ancillary industries that supported it (notably advertising and the press), developing contacts and attracting interest far beyond local and national boundaries.

The first section, ‘Longman, Broderip and their Successors’, is prefaced by a ‘Chronology of the Business begun by James Longman’, on pages 3–7 (particularly helpful in view of the somewhat dizzying whirl of change in the business partnerships). Since Jenny Nex’s chapter, ‘Longman & Broderip’, is the first in the book (pp. 9–93), she prefaces the archival findings that constitute the main material of her contribution with a general introduction reminding us that London was ‘the largest city in Europe by the end of the eighteenth century’ (p. 9).

The importance of London as a centre at this period has indeed been documented in a variety of ways in musicological activity of recent decades, ranging from Nicholas Temperley’s editions of music of the London Pianoforte School (20 vols., New York, 1984–7) to Anselm Gerhard’s study of Clementi, London, and Classicism (London und der Klassizismus in der Musik: Die Idee der ‘absoluten Musik’ und Muzio Clementis Klavierwerk (Stuttgart and Weimar, 2002)), together with studies of individual aspects such as Simon McVeigh’s on London’s concert culture (Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn (Cambridge, 1993)). Though London’s status as a centre of the music trade has certainly not gone unrecognized previously, it has perhaps not been demonstrated in as focused and detailed a manner as here.

But Kassler and his contributors, while recognizing the centrality of London, are also concerned to offer perspectives on the provincial scene, and to link the businesses they discuss with the wider European (and world) perspective. Thus Jenny Nex’s discussion draws on such lively reportage as the ever valuable John Marsh Journals in order to demonstrate the movements and influence of London-based music traders beyond the capital, as well as documenting the spread of their instruments further abroad. She notes how the scope of the products and services offered by the traders was expanded to include, in the case of Longman & Broderip, renting out and tuning a variety of keyboard instruments, and setting up a music circulating library offering subscribers in sweeping terms ‘every publication, ancient and modern, that England, France, Holland, and Germany have produced, or may in future’ (p. 63). [End Page 605]

The grandeur of their claims and credentials reaches something of a peak with Broderip & Wilkinson’s notice ‘placed inside a barrel organ made for the firm’, as quoted by Michael Kassler in chapter 2 (pp. 98...

pdf

Share