6 - Amateur Music-Making, Theatre Performances, and Benefit Concerts in Edinburgh

Summary

Edinburgh was the first Scottish city where amateur music-making actually formed a major part of a city’s musical life and developed an institutionalized profile. Over the course of the eighteenth century the Edinburgh Musical Society (EMS) eventually created more demand than their members could provide, which led to a growing involvement of professional musicians. In this chapter it will be shown, how the growing professionalization of the concert life was accompanied by an increasing number of benefit events. Like in other regions of the UK, the beneficiaries of these events were mainly the performing musicians themselves. Nevertheless, they did not just follow other British examples as outlined in the other chapters. Through newspaper advertisements, the minutes of the EMS, and other surviving sources, it is possible to closely investigate various benefit concerts in Edinburgh and to distinguish between the different types that were organized either mainly for charitable purposes or that were meant to contribute to the performers’ income. Furthermore, the sources help to reconstruct the background of these events in regard to their venue, their inner structure, and their repertory.