20 - Performance in the ‘long eighteenth century’: an overview

Summary

An increasingly public milieu, as music moved from royal and aristocratic patronage at court to public concerts supported by newly enriched middle classes and promoted by newly independent musical entrepreneurs: thus runs the typical line of discussion in connection with eighteenth-century performance. Undoubtedly this is a useful snapshot for what is (in the broader sweep of musical history) a transitional phase towards a more widely dispersed musical culture and a more commercially oriented model of performance. Yet such a snapshot is not without its own historical difficulties, not least in the comparatively limited extent of truly public performance across Europe, and in the weight of association with a bourgeois culture that is itself often elusive or misleadingly overstated.

First, it is worth emphasising the sheer centrality of musical performance in every kind of social interaction, whether court or civic ceremonial, liturgical celebration, sociable club or mere domestic amusement. Music figured very largely in the social round of the elites of every European society, defining status and spending power as well as musical sophistication and refined taste. For the leisured classes, whether listeners or performers, it was symbolic of an abundance of time for indulgence of entertainment or intellectual pursuit. And as musical performance coalesced into standard patterns – opera seasons, winter subscription concerts and Lenten oratorios – they were appropriated and absorbed into the lives of an ever-widening sphere of music-lovers. This expansion may have brought about certain changes of tone, yet performance remained a shared experience, celebrating social differentiation while at the same time enabling cohesion and harmony by bringing different layers of society together in a neutral space not requiring the learning and social sensitivities inherent in conversation.