The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and Their Audiences, 1700 to the Present - Hardcover

Blanning, Tim

3.69

114 ratings by Goodreads

9781846141782: The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and Their Audiences, 1700 to the Present

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846141788 ISBN 13: 9781846141782

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2008

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The power and prestige of music in the modern world has given its practitioners extraordinary wealth and moral authority. This is taken for granted now and yet for much of Europe's history musicians have been mere servants. The rise of music and musicians in the West is the subject of Tim Blanning's fascinating new book, from poorly-paid balladeers to music-masters employed by fickle patrons, to the great composers of genius, to today's rock stars. How, he asks, did music progress from subordinate status to its present position of supremacy among the creative arts? Mozart was 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, Europe's most powerful ruler - Emperor William I of Germany - paid homage to Wagner by travelling 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 have to 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, Blanning considers music's alliances with nationalism, race and sex. Although not always in step, music, society, and politics, he shows, march in the same direction. The Triumph of Music is a marvellous work of cultural history, packed with surprising stories and insights.

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From the Back Cover:

'An extraordinarily wide-ranging and stimulating book, which covers everything from technology to politics, from Haydn to hip hop, from Monteverdi to MTV' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph

Once musicians such as Mozart were little more than court servants; now they are multimillionaire superstars wielding more power than politicians. How did this extraordinary change come about?

Tim Blanning's brilliantly enjoyable book examines how everything from the cult of the romantic to technology and travel all fed the inexorable rise of music in the West, making it the most dominant and ubiquitous of the art forms. Encompassing balladeers, the great composers, jazz legends and rock gods, this is an enthralling story of power, patronage, creativity and genius.

'A triumph of engaging and informative writing' Time Out

'Entertaining ... illuminating ... he writes with lucidity, grace and wry wit' Rupert Christiansen, Spectator

'He moves with effortless assurance between forms and modes' Boyd Tonkin, Independent, Books of the Year

'Gracefully written, entertaining and informative ... a fine, readable book' Alexander Waugh, Literary Review

About the Author:

Tim Blanning is the author of a number of major works on eighteenth century Europe, including The Pursuit of Glory : Europe 1648-1815, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture and Joseph II. He is Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy. His latest book, Frederick the Great, won the British Academy Medal 2016.

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