The particular listener-friendliness of later eighteenth-century music is no secret; it has been an article of faith for some more recent writers, but has not that often informed the basic approach to this repertory. Theories of rhetoric, schema or topic are certainly premissed on such an understanding, but do not necessarily address what the author believes to be a central aspect of the musical aesthetics (and indeed of the wider culture) of the time: sociability. Yet music, especially instrumental music, arguably forms the most powerful expression of sociability that has reached us from that time – not merely reflecting wider practices but actively providing models for human behaviour. I discuss some of the common syntactical mechanisms that convey the sociable impulse, in line with Judith Schwartz's definition of an art that ‘communicate[s] by means of pattern rather than momentary passion’, and with particular reference to Pleyel, J. C. Bach and Haydn.

This article examines the English reception of an Italian song by Lully, ‘Scocca pur tutti tuoi strali’ (LWV 76/3), and its importance for English music of the late seventeenth century. In English sources, this song exists in arrangements for keyboard, and for two violins and bass. It was also the source of a five-bar bass formula used variously in the 1680s. Purcell, for example, clearly used the bass, or an adapted version of it, as an ostinato pattern in three instances. ‘Scocca pur’ is the clearest example of a model composition in Italian style that was known to English musicians in the late seventeenth century. By implication, Italian-style compositional practice was developed from a limited number of models, which were adapted freely, disseminated aurally, and modified to suit native tastes and practices.

The Committee of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation possesses material indicating that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her, and that these letters were destroyed on being discovered after her death. The notion that Mendelssohn would have written such letters conflicts strikingly with the received view of his character. Nevertheless, the veracity of the material is beyond doubt, and, while it does not include specific evidence that Mendelssohn and Lind began an affair, it points more clearly than has hitherto been possible towards an answer to this question. Thus it necessitates a radical revision of perceptions of these two major musicians. For Otto Goldschmidt, Lind's husband, destroying the letters was crucial in protecting the reputations not only of his wife and Mendelssohn but also of himself and his family.

The spectre of music as a transcendent artistic ideal figures prominently in the literary criticism of Victorian aestheticism, though the extent to which aestheticism of the movement actually influenced the thinking of British composers has received only marginal scholarly attention. By the first decades of the twentieth century, aestheticism had become decidedly unfashionable even in literary circles, so it is unsurprising that composers of the time would choose to distance themselves from its rhetoric. The prevalence of a certain type of metaphysical conception of the creative act of the artist and intuitive act of the critic, however, may suggest an important remnant of aesthetic influence. Drawing from new critical trends which themselves mirror those of aestheticism, this article posits a revised conception of aesthetic discourse as an activity of self-cultivation, and examines its role in shaping the lives of selected British composer-critics from the early part of the twentieth century. By casting the aesthetic ethos not as a doctrine but as a set of internal practices that inform the creation and subversion of doctrine, the article demonstrates how a ‘relational musicology’ can act as a tool for historical inquiry.

The popularity in Britain of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius was triggered by the successful reception of the work in Germany in December 1901 and May 1902. By examining some of the writings on Elgar by German critics in this period, I explain that what may particularly have appealed to German audiences was the composer's engagement with mysticism, something that as well as being a distinct strand of German theology since medieval times had acquired a new popularity among German artists in a number of fields, as part of a reaction to the materialism of Wilhelmine Germany. Through a reading of the work that takes into account both its Catholic theology and ideas of mysticism more generally, I propose that the two Parts of the work should be conceived as taking place simultaneously, rather than successively, and that the work is thus best understood as belonging to the genre of epic rather than drama.

This article examines a range of writings on the status of musical interpretation in Austria and Germany during the early decades of the twentieth century, and argues their relevance to current debates. While the division outlined by recent research between popular-critical hermeneutics and analytical ‘energetics’ at this time remains important, hitherto neglected contemporary reflections by Paul Bekker and Kurt Westphal demonstrate that the success of energetics was not due to any straightforward intellectual victory. Rather, the images of force and motion promoted by 1920s analysis were carried by historical currents in the philosophy, educational theory and arts of the time, revealing a culturally situated source for twenty-first-century analysis's preoccupations with motion and embodiment. The cultural relativization of such images may serve as a retrospective counteraction to the analytical rationalizing processes that culminated specifically in Heinrich Schenker's later work, and more generally in the privileging of graphic and notational imagery over poetic paraphrase.

The early history of the London Symphony Orchestra and its association with Richter and Elgar have been well documented, yet there is much still to be learnt about the 1904 break with the autocratic Henry Wood and about the artistic and commercial decisions facing the new self-governing orchestra. From the start, the LSO confidently allied itself with international standards and cosmopolitan repertoire, and a roster of celebrated conductors to match. But financial security was less easily gained. Detailed analysis of the finances of the prestigious subscription series shows initial eclecticism giving way to concentration on the Austro-German canon in reaction to commercial and social pressures. British music came in and out of focus, despite the nationalistic mood of the time, and the analysis places in sharp relief the successes and failures of the link with Elgar. Furthermore, in an extraordinary sacrifice of self-interest, the freelance members decided to renounce normal fees for the subscription series in order to gain lucrative engagements elsewhere: thus the orchestra acted more as an agency than as a stable business proposition. Nevertheless, the innovative governance structure, underpinning a combination of resolute management, entrepreneurial energy and communal decision-making, eventually proved a viable and sustainable model that has remained influential up to this day.

This article explores and contextualizes the Macnaghten–Lemare concerts, a London concert series run for six seasons in the 1930s by the violinist Anne Macnaghten and the conductor Iris Lemare, with the help of the composer Elisabeth Lutyens and others. Notable for their performances of the work of emerging British composers such as Benjamin Britten and Elizabeth Maconchy, the concerts are also remarkable for the central role played by women – as performers, organizers and composers – and for the space they provided for the unconventional and ignored. Drawing on interviews with Macnaghten and Lemare as well as extensive archival research, the article provides details of the 20 concerts and argues for their hitherto overlooked importance in understanding the British concert life of this decade.