William Weber Did people listen in the 18th century? Dy peor realy listen to the mic in publi performances during the 18th century? ‘This problem, which has emerged as a major issue for the study of music, culture and society of that period, has wide implications, touching upon the funda- mental criteria by which we value music as a serious pursuit, Recent opinion is inclined to idealize the lis tening habits of the 19th century, and to condemn unjustifiably harshly those of the 18th. To ask whether people listened is to pose the problem in categorical terms, confronting the possibility that there was little true listening as we understand it, and questioning the integrity of 18th-century musical culture. Oris that what those who have written on the sub- ject mean? Do they intend to go that far? A distin- guished set of musicologists, historians and also a philosopher has raised the issue, bringing to our at- tention a problem whose implications had been litle explored. I propose to offer here a different ap- proach to the problem, one that asks that we be more careful not to let our view of the past be dis- torted by the aesthetic and ideological assumptions through which we interpret our own musical experi- ence. Eighteenth-century musical life adhered to a social etiquette that tolerated forms of behaviour more diverse than those generally permitted today, But that does not mean people did not listen at all or that they had no serious interest in the music. They paid attention to it in ways different from our own, and they wrote about it from a perspective that, though seemingly strange to us, had musical and in- tellectual integrity The problem of listening has been posed essen- tially in moral and ideological terms. Stepping into a hall today to hear a performance of classical music commits the listener to a strict social regimen. One is expected to abstain from any undue movement ‘or speech and to listen with what James H. Johnson has called ‘absorption’, that is, complete attention to the music. We define the experience as a step apart from mundane existence and the compro- mises involved there, especially those that form a part of profit-oriented commercial culture. It is a shift into a highly internalized realm where we achieve a purity of both intellect and feeling such as we find in few places in our lives. The experience fulfils a spiritual function that the church offers to few educated people in our day. As Peter Gay has written of the early 19th century, ‘It was a time when the art of listening to music and poetry devel- oped into a posture almost religious in its ardour and when romantic notions of love secured a vast, largely uncritical public.” That is why, even though a relatively small proportion of society attends these events, society as a whole accepts the central place afforded them, and generally endorses the subsi many enjoy. Because so much is involved for usin the etiquette of classical-music life, any notion that people did not listen in times past carries powerful pejorative impli- cations, We are horrified by the famous Parisian en- raving, representing a scene in 1766, where people seem to chat while Mozart begins to play (see illus. of which more below); we see them demeaning one of our loftiest cultural icons and abridging one of our most basic aesthetic principles. When that hap- pens, we perceive the picture in global cultural and ethical terms, seeing it not only as a matter of social etiquette but also of the most fundamental artistic William Weber is Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. He participates in the Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies at the William Andrews Clark Library, UCLA. 678 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 19971 Tes in he Engh fio nthe Salon dss Qaate Gc, the Tel the home of os Feng de Bourbon, Prince of Cont 76. The hilt prosigy Aizu ted the Raped with Pere de aoe om he gta. Painting by Michel Barden Olver (ar, Mase Lowe) values, We then reject the Tstenes of Mozart time 2s cultural basins. The question of tering ‘omes tobe posed in categoria terms people listen Not what kindof people, im what social or musical context, of in what way, bat simply ad thot “Much of what we are dealing wit here concerns language and ideology. Our discourse abot claca musi paral ofan deals that mes the much more matter of fact prose oF ith-cantry Writes som ditastefl Today the words ‘asl, ere ‘us or musicl—ot to speak of genus’ oe mas rerpiacecatry a set overtones foreign tothe th century. Our ideological construct of tate and Prope listening dates for the most par, from the ‘aly pth century and is not even shared by the tbo cial weld in our wn day. we ate toon erstand ter musical culture in her own ters we must be open to the very ferent waysin which ropl hie coperienced euscand writen about Opinion abou where concer ie aay should g> is dy involved inthis discussion. Ute to se withthe music critics John Rockwell, Mark Swed 4nd Keith Potter in thir view that the casa Imusie world needs a looszning up through new Kinds of sci contents and crs evtrin epertry, perhaps Seen est prominently since the 13805 in the concerts of the Kronos Quart. Ftom this per sective, absolute sence or motionlesinessscem [is impontant han the curl vialiyof reining AREY WUSIE MOVEMBER 1997 679,musical experience, For example, experiencing music performed in ambulatory social spaces, as John Cage and David Tudor devised, resulted in such a new musical meaning, James H. Johnson, in Listening in Paris: a cultural history, must be credited with establishing listening as a problem that we must address> He argues that the public at the Académie Royale de Musique (the ‘Opéra) attended only for social reasons, seeing it as a meeting, place rather than an artistic experience. He cites passages where contemporaries spoke ofthe au- dience’s lack of interest in the performances, failing éither to absorb itself in the music or even to recog- nize that such an act was appropriate there. He con- demns opera of the time simply as a ‘social duty’, and dismisses the productions as ‘not properly “op- eras’, if the term is taken to mean musical dramas with coherent plots that consist primarily of singing’ His book raises serious issues about the works themselves, and makes a critique of the pasticcio-like fashion by which some 18th-century ‘operas were put together without being conceived as integral works of art. Johnson's book is valuable for tracing the history of the Opéra from a broad social perspective, show- ing how the institution was so closely linked to the locus of power and authority in France. The discus- sion of Rossini—that he challenged the listening habits of his audience—gives a fresh perspective upon the most widely known composer of the 19th century’ However, a drawback of the book is that it comes to such sweeping conclusions about listening practices. Johnson defines the problem so com- pletely in post-Romantic terms that the strictness of the distinction between ‘amusement’ and ‘absorp- tion’ is questionable even for our day. He regards as invalid any notion of listening that is not highly in- ternalized and set in the language of individual ge- ‘The fact that Peter Gay begins The naked heart, the last of his four books on the agth-century bour- geoisie, by discussing musical listening, indicates how important the problem has recently become among historians.* He approaches the subject from a broadly defined intellectual perspective, seeing a new kind of internal experience in concert halls that was related to the growing interest in emotions, 680 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 dreams and psychological states. The discussion of listening that is central to The naked heart provides a framework within which we can see how this new musical etiquette emerged. Gay is struck by the sense of primitivism by which the new inward-looking cultural tendencies singled out music with speci interest: “Music virtually enforces these primitive ap- petites precisely because its effects travel back to the deepest taproots of the human experience.” Both the Musical and the Feminine were defined in highly in- dividualistic terms and set in opposition to the ma- nipulation of reason. Gay does not treat earlier listening as harshly as Johnson does; indeed, he recognizes that much of the hurly-burly during 18th-century musical perfor- ‘mances involved a response to the music itself. He does, however, deprecate the audience seen in the picture of Mozart in Paris and relishes quoting pas- sages that describe outrageous forms of audience be- haviour. ‘Philosophers provided alibis’, he com- ‘ments, ‘for the shallow, sociable view of what music should mean.’* But what is so ‘shallow’ about music being ‘sociable’? Is that by definition inferior? Gay’s words are nonetheless suggestive. In his phrase, ‘the sociable view of what music should mean’, we find a promising beginning for our enquiries into basic as- sumptions about music in the 18th century. How did the sociability of musical contexts in that time relate to the ways by which people heard and interpreted music? We can see that happening in the 18th cen- tury in the pervasive influence of archetypes of dance music within both vocal and instrumental music— topoi, as Wye J. Allenbrook has termed them? Nor is internalism the whole story of the new mode of listening in the roth century. Richard Lep- pert has argued that visual images played a central role within musical culture after the middle of the asth century. He shows how images of performers and conductors—arms flying in highly suggestive fashion—permeated drawings of musical life. Physi- cal motion persisted as a metaphor for musical dy- A third book that has contributed significantly to the discussion of listening, in a broad perspective, is, Lydia Gochr’s The imaginary museum of musical works" A philosopher trained in music, Goehr shows how the principle of an integral work of artdid not come about in music until after 1800, as did many of the most basic tenets of modern musical culture, She has gathered together what musicolo- gists have discovered in the practices of musical life before and after that key date, and presents them succinctly as one of the most fundamental cultural transformations in Western music history. For all that I value her book, however, I bridle at the way in which Gochr discusses 18th-century musical life. Like Johnson in Listening in Paris, Goehr views the subject through the lens of post- Romantic values and assumptions, focusing on how asth-century composers or listeners did not hold to the same principles as their successors. She ridicules the pastccio, a genre that in some instances musi cologists now respect for having a coherent dra- matic shape, sequence of forms and moods, despite the diverse authorship of the arias.” She treats the audience as strictly interested in the extra-musical aspects of musical contexts. ‘Usually musical per- formances were background affairs within a church or court, As accompaniment either to setious or frivolous activities, they were rarely the immediate focus of attention.” According to Goehr this led to bad performances, and in many cases to bad music: “That performances were generally rather haphaz- ard and unrehearsed points to the extent to which music was heard not for itself but in service to something else.” Now, there is much truth in this argument: music ‘was more closely linked to other social activities than is true at least in classical-music contexts today. But that does not necessarily mean that people did not, oF could not, listen to the music or take it seriously. ‘The post-Romantic point of view, as itis reflected here, distrusts any fusion between music and mun- dane social activities which are felt to violate the in- tegrity of musical experience. I shall examine below contexts in 28th-century courts and churches where serious listening did go on in conjunction with many other activities. ‘The sociable aesthetic in context ‘Why did musical life have a different social etiquette in the 18th century? To understand why people be- haved differently at concerts and at the opera, we need to see how much more integrated the lie of the better-off classes was in that society, both in musical and social terms. In the first place, in the 18th century the musical world recognized less differentiation among its i teners by levels of learning or taste. Opera was as- sumed to be accessible, indeed attractive, to all social classes; aficionados and less active listeners went to the same productions in the same halls. Indeed, from the founding of the Venetian halls in the 1630s, ‘opera was what one might calla ‘general taste." A basic differentiation was nonetheless made between music thought mundane (folk songs, hymns and military music) and artful (liturgical music, dance music and opera), and the upper classes participated in both kinds of music-making. In the second place, opera in the 18th century pos- sessed what we might call a mixed social etiquette. People took for granted that they would socialize during parts of the performance; they had often ‘made appointments to meet and would move be- tween boxes or parts of the hall. But it is also clear that some people did watch and listen, and that at points the entire audience did so. The discovery that, not everyone was absorbed in listening at every mo- ‘ment seems disturbing to us, given the idealistic aes- thetic that defines our approach to musical experi- ence. But this should not lure us into thinking that ‘one could not listen in the earlier period, or, indeed, that people in general did not. As we shall see, the toleration of behaviour that might impede listening flowed from social necessity, not from a limited commitment to music as serious pursuit. ‘We need to search for the origins of the mixed na- ture of etiquette in the social demography among the upper classes before and after the middle of the roth century. The world that went to concerts and opera in the earlier period was often called the beau monde. It constituted a milieu larger and less intimate than that of a court but at the same time one much smaller, less diversified, and more tightly drawn than the upper classes of the mass metropolises such as developed in the national capitals by the end of the sth century. In some cases these people also referred to themselves simply as the World. This was a public whose members at least knew of each other, min- sling in a closely linked set of social, cultural and political contexts. EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 6812 A performance in wee of ean-Baptste Ls cme alls La Prine Edt Veale ngavng by Leal Saves Lap Uiversasbisoch) Member ofthe how monde conducted their 3 life in large part in pubic places. I the aloe capital tes they sw eachother rater les in thee Tomes than in theater and at concerts and ll and inshops cofee houses, cus, parks end rece tacks. Iwas conventional ows several sac places in an ‘evening a regular thetr-goer might tke in an at a Covent Garden but hear the part of « concert, ‘where a musician he o she amie was performing, 432d ako stop by sole hop te chat wth politic Colleague, Atendance ata theatre wae prestmed to ‘bea sci acto go washy definition to mingle with the assembled company a much as to sea pd ‘ion Fr example in 31 Sr Dudley Ryde, ater a Judge and thoughout his ie a man ofthe theatre, ‘wrote his oral that he eat lyn thie St he it Ac Thon test he new Payouts th eo ft he {Betis Act Sopped the Gl Hosen et home ol ‘ead aot Mole coms col tne, To ed weeps” 682 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 Ap atv playgoer such ashes no need to men tion what he saw oma given night when waiting et tees or his diary the gene did ot demand he do i sisnow the cate The public atthe opera and at hetres in general, ‘was tetefore much more ofa functioning come nity than is ue today. Going “to be see sould rot ascesariybe construed ara opportunistic tt rather, since Being in public was so basic to ite ie ‘tendance ata certain summber of cultural vente ‘wae 2 soil cbligation for & member of the bua rronie. Opere became considerably mote import- dant than the spoken theate, since twas liked t9 fntemationa lies, London's Weeliy Journal ecard in 2s ol bm pel odo ln dh {omuch tht wary Seber ofthe Beso at he Thee on at en hk pesto pea a thoy sao ann dro cao fs Bec ‘spl ety ous wha babe es ing heal5 Apefomancein 60 Anon Ct’ pmo oie thete atin Vins or te mmriase of enol and Margher ofSpinegrvigby ra Gee ‘Sie German, ol ig it aden with Compe {eno onder snd tence bt pos Appear ‘ay Oper Nigh ae Haymaree™ Mach of the problem ein the diferent modes of Adscoure by which diferent epochs have ten bout their mascal experience AS James Johnson Tn shown in ich deta during the 180 centory peopl ke to deny tbat they steed atthe pera or In concen fy conten m vr day we take pains 0 ddecare that we do nothing but listen. Both state ‘ments are wopes: conventions tht have become fixed within mosial fe as verbal ites even though thy donot reprsetpreciely wha! we do In the a8 century people listened more tan they simitod in our day our minds wander, and at Intermission we gosip ore than we cae to cox cade The exer trope wis founded upon the nature (of gentility of the time a sense of propriety that bored speaking excesvely seis erm ve ‘hough some musical experiences Mande’ or Rameau’ ‘The trope ako had politcal aspect. served to ‘demify and arm the public as the principal ase thority within the thea ater than the mona for the manager, « mutter of importance in time ‘when absolutism was beginning to weaken® Seven- teenth-eemury pitures of court opera with the ‘monarch presentofenportraya highly atentiveend submissive endience: se the dwn of opera st Verses in 664 (usa) and one ofthe legendary perfomance of I pom or in Vienna in 3698 Gls). But» pictte ofthe opera in Tarn im 740 (ills) is rypieal of @ new interest i the public ‘self porsaping individuals ina varicyof postures. ‘A drawing of the Paris Opéra 20 years later gives trong, moody seme of the publi’s presence ‘illus Not only mast we he coef nt to red literally tropes about seni: we must abo remember that signifcan aspets of musical lenin often never i ene, for example—wete deeply RARLY MUSIC NOVEMRER 1997 6834. psfinmaace i799 of Faces F's Avante ‘ea Rego, Tus: paling Pho Domai lvro (Turin, sce Cs) reached the printed page. The fact that sett ‘writings id not dell deeply upon introspective o- ects of listening doesnot prove ht listeners aed ‘experience music ip such a shen Indeed, forall, the imperance of socbilty within snd century rusia values wecan discern acertain interalityin ‘he dankffects that pieces set in slo empos and in the minor mode offen contsined A erong contin ity existed in the appreciation of sich mosial mos through the ath century ainatng in he Jeet of eomposers su os Brahs end Bizet in ‘modal harmonies" lorentine opera goees ‘Wiliam Holmes has confronted the problem of hs ‘ening in 8th-centry opera halls fom aniely bal anced perspective.” He shows that alter the orea tine Pergola opened in 3718 as a public theatre French and English visitors ied to remark on how badly audienes eoved in ly, even too 0D servers ssid much the same back home about their felow opera-gors. ‘Could i bee asks, "hat these ‘iter seldom atended opera at home” Samuel 664 PARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 Sharp remarked in 764 that, 6 Bolish vistors al ‘was ket sy, the Neapolitan quality rarely dine ‘sup with one another, and many of them hay ‘Vist but atthe Opera; on this account they seldom huentthemedtes” Nevertheless, he adie thet “the pracace of supping ss rte that Ihave never scent tn a1 Horse Walpole deprecated the Lon don opera in simi terms in eter to Si Horace Mann the opera begins t fil pring fr ll those who don't love music love noie and party and will any night give hel guines forthe liberty of Iissng* "Par a he terms ity amounted to pre sure for or against singers charpioned by farnies ‘who Belongs to contng factions Here again we have a trope a convention of spect found commonly intcavelleters ad stil ‘ings Speaking ofthe ope, for any ofa vr ‘eyof reasons was onc ofthe eases ways to entertain ‘one's readers When witers deprecated opera a fences for noe paying attention to the musi, they feigned a distance from the ctignete ofthe socal ‘content when i ely they themselves belonged to that very word. The fst tat they eieized audi ‘ences fr their bchavione, of cours, indicates that {here di exist principle hat one shoul ten Holmes gue that in other respects vel ears show that acme people must ave lien atten tively, Observers epored rics af the sihttines sand the weak ight thetes andl ws that during the performance many people fellowed the Horetto in lite books sold tthe door. Moreover, since ‘opers-goers often heard a production many times they would not fel it necessary to be silent during the estate, bt wold opt pay attention to the main arias Selective listening of this sort sprang from a cial scrutiny of singers and the eapily hanging compositional sve of the time; it wat presumed that one di not need t listen whe oe Aid not ike the peeformance. On one occasion ‘Mann old Walpole how 3 poor choice f singers lee the hopes impresario of the Pergola with rows of empty sexta "Aconncisicur such ax Mann —one ofthe Beter- fnformed English ers of Hallan singers and op. ‘rat —both complained about etiquette tthe opera nd adhered tot Once whiletaling about the Pee- sg0laat the peak ofthe season, he remarked that "The‘bin (S Peery Here feequentoperaswehave ae gest resoutc;one tt at home in one’ box to receive company which Teaves when itis not agreeable, and makes vst, oF fone attends to the marie So even Mana didnot lsen all he time, Though his words may sem cl- Tou 5 ta to think abou hon they em to sake light of musiomthe music ar we woul tess It-siace head not fal the need to wet the word “ruin the reverential ene ed od. ‘One ofthe major differences between then tury listing and out own that they paid mach ‘more attention tothe wore. Pasian eper goers would anticipate hearing the poetry of Quin ax ‘muchas he msc Llly ttt, Londonesiked a ‘quote From wel-known Hbrettos when speskng of peopl and pois. In 34 Walpole wrote to Mann ‘Mt gosip about an afar between the Tssrna El beth and an offer he Kev made him say tht ‘ould Uke to see their ves woven into a French opera {An even more important difeence in the way people listened waste centrality of vocal ornamen fatlon. do aot have the space here co discus his 5 Aperfrmance in of Lal's Armin the Grade Sll of Pals Royal Pars wot by Gabi de Saat (aod he wa ete aspect of ihh-entury listening. Note, how eve that te radio of focusing upon vo! inter pretation more than the composes intentions ame “under hash atack during the 1305 and 8405 2nd hat dhe ideology that thus emerged has Geely nis enced the writing of mosic history ever since. AS: pects ofthe olerlseming tation nonetheless per- Site ight othe end ofthe rth century. andiveon ‘nite form tay [Lady Mary Coke asa listener and etic {An imporint contribution to the problem a iaten- in the th entry i Cuts Price’ dscovey of ‘Susan Burney str ofthe novelist Fanny Burne, 8 major musical inlet. In a recent study of the King’s Theatre writen with Jocth Miows and Rober. Hume, he shows her extraordinary kno [edge inteligence snd sical poston. While we ust credit her father for his storing we mat lo recognize that a woman not intending to enter the ruseal prfesion became just as sophisticated a the men known as connoiseur. She devried 3 singer she heard in 78a 8 RARLY MUSIC SOvEWAER 1997 685much too young Singer for her Age—She was somewhat Gightened, but not half so much as she had occasion to be— she has a strong Voice, & compass enough—but a bad porta- ‘mento—& is extremely ignorant of Music—broke her time whenever she had not the Song perfectly by heart—& her But, if I may continue to be critical of my distin- guished colleagues, Price, Milhous and Hume are too unsympathetic to another member of the public, Lady Mary Coke of the powerful Argyll family.» They do not deny that she listened, but they do cast save aspersions upon why she went, and the inteli- gence with which she apprehended the perfor- mances: She never names a ballet, and rately an opera, Singers and dancers are approved or disapproved, but save in rare cases she refers to them only by function—'the new fist man’ or "the new fist woman’, She displays no interest at all in who Wrote the music. Much of her attention is on who was pee- Sent and the gossip of the day. She likes both opera and dance, but she attends the King’s Theatre as part ofa social situa, She is avery different auditor from the Burney, or the fiery Italian gallery partisans. Lady Mary was probably repre sentative of a substantial component among the subscribers who kept the King’s Theatre in business, and the 2oth-cen- tury critic would be foolish to ignore her outlook” While all this is factually true, the implications about Lady Mary's listening are misleading, To say that she went as ‘part of a social ritual’ and was chiefly interested in ‘the gossip of the day’ is to make a moral statement. These phrases are filled, pejora- tively, with the presumption that musical experience must be pure and unsullied by social experience, fil- ing to recognize the important ways in which even the most ‘serious’ musical institutions serve social purposes. Let us be honest about our own musical lives, remembering how much we ourselves gossip when we go, ritual-like, to our accustomed musical places. Lady Mary Coke's leters offer a most unusual in- sight into the listening habits of a conventional ‘opera-goer. A daughter of the Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, a divorcée who never remarried, she shared a box with the opera connoisseur Horace Walpole for many seasons between the 17605 and 1790s." She wrote to her sister several times a week during this time, using akind of shorthand typical of letters to an accustomed recipient, avoiding details 686 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 that would lengthen the text excessively. Her sister, who attended the opera regularly when in London, wanted to know what went on, and was told this in a quite informative fashion. A typical entry in the let- ters about a trip to the opera begins with the time Lady Mary left home, the size of the audience and the conditions of the hall, sketches the people in the box she sat in and others she met, relates what gossip she heard, but at some point also presents an opin- ion about some aspect of the performance. The basic themes of her opinions are the music, the leading man and leading woman, and the dance; often she cites a positive and a negative aspect of two or three of these categories. Variously she cites her own opin- ion or that either of the public as a whole or individ- uals with whom she talked. A report of 2 January 1779 is typical: 1 shou'd not have known our Box & am sorry to say the change isnot to its advantage subscribers were in it the box wou'd be much more crowded[.| The musick I think good & the frst Man a remarkable find, & [think pleasing singer, the Woman has an agreeable voice & isa very fine Actress. the Audience ‘was not numerous Mr Townshend satin the Box. ‘The adjectives here that describe voices—pleas- ing’ and ‘agreeable’—spring from a critical vocabu- lary particular to opera criticisms the phrase ‘a re- markable find’ came from the widespread interest in the come-and-go of singers from Italy, in which het companion occasionally played a role. The construc- tion ‘to please’ was particularly important; it re- curred in musical discourse, drawn from the highly diverse but always meaningful uses of the word in the 18th century. All this suggests that she was by no ‘means lacking in knowledge or linguistic sophistica- tion in talking about opera, Lady Mary made some strong judgements. Even though she was known as something of a trouble- maker (especially to English diplomats in Vienna and Lisbon), one senses that when she made her opinions known to her sister she spoke in the same terms as many others. For example, on 22 January 1788 she declared that ‘Lwas not amused this evening, at the Opera(;] the musick did not please me neither anything I heard or saw all went contrary to my “in- dlination”.” On another occasion (24 December 1786) she was more specific, showing that she saw noreason to gush over a star soprano such as Gertrude Mara: “The Opera was far from full & far from pleasing|—Jone or two songs or excerpts it was very dull. Rubineli and Mara were very ine but MaralTs songs were not good, the Dances were terrible & only two Dancers that are worth looking at, ‘wo Women, & no Men that is tolerable to dance with them. Five years previously, on 4 December 1781 she had likewise shown a certain distance from the adu- lation of one of her sisters for another major singer: ‘Lady Mary Duncan is all rapture with Pacchierotti who every body says is much finer than he was two years ago." Particular musical aspects come into her language aswell. The orchestra sometimes drew her attention, as in her account of 3 November 1776: “The Opera was very full on Saturday; the Orchestra is said to be the best we have ever had; the new woman has a very fine Voice, but is very awkward & the dancing is very bad this is the account given me by La Exeter and Ld Aylesbury The latter, a relative, sat in her box; the former was, one of the directors of the Concert of Antient Music. Opera genres also come into her purview. On 9 Jan- wary 1787 she stated that "The comic Opera is better than the serious one though not very excellent. The new Woman has a very pretty voice but not enough for that theatre.” Sometimes she could cover a lot of ground quickly and concisely in an opinionated but coher- ent succession of judgements. After one evening at the opera she declared (12 January 1786) that she could not {ivea good account ofa bad thing. [Slome of the musick is prety but the Operas silier than any lever heard the per formers are not too good, but Vesrliles is if possible better than everl} [Tlis a pleasure to see dancing in such perfec tion(] ts pity there isnot woman that approaches his exce- lence to dance with him She wrote this at the very start of published daily music criticism. Pieces on the opera had not yet developed the standard form and language of com- mentary that they were to gain by the early 1gth century. Reading a passage such as this, one gets a sense of how printed reviews did not evolve so much out of formal written traditions, but rather from a long tradition of oral commentary and casual letter-writing—the very kind of prose Lady Mary wrote to her sister. Lady Mary did not stay for the whole of every per- formance, but came to and went from a variety of entertainments in any evening. However, in one re- mark we can detect a certain concern for how a pro- duction, or the presentation of a particular evening, might be constructed. Just before Christmas 1785 she remarked that ‘No operas tll after Christmas & then Tam told there will be something patch’d up, which. probably will not be very good." Her criticism of a ‘patch’d up’ operas of interest within the recent de- bate on the virtues and vices of pasticcio. While the comment should by no means be taken as a rejection, of that kind of practice, it does demonstrate a certain concern with unity and common artistry ina night's, performance. She also kept abreast of the politics of the opera company, informing her sister of the complicated ri- valries between projected or real opera companies in this period. Indeed, women exerted an unusual kind of authority within the King’s Theatre. Beginning in the early 17903, and most likely somewhat earlier, each box was led by a ‘principal boxholder’ who set up its membership and collected the charges to give to the director of the hall. Lady Mary seems to have played that role at its inception. We tend to smile at the ways in which people of that time spoke of an event that we feel has to be treated in lofty, ‘artistic’ terms. An opera box was a kind of second home to someone in the élite; it did not seem removed from life as it does now. On New Year's Day in 1778 she complained that: 1 am going to the Opera for the frst time this year & thee Majesties have taken our Box. I was starved at the Opera & not much amused{—|very litle company indeed Here, then, we get a remarkably intimate picture of how a member of the audience did or did not lis- ten, Lady Mary treated the King’s Theatre in mun- dane terms, while gawking, gossiping and doing her social business, but she also paid regular attention to what happened on stage. That attention was not, continuous—what James Johnson would call ‘ab- sorbed’—but it was informed by at least a basic knowledge of opera in her time. She developed and delivered clear opinions on what she heard and saws, she was not swept away by fashion, EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 687Contexts of 18th-century listening One of the more troubling aspects ofthe condemna- tion of opera-goers’ conduct is the presumption that misbehaviour at the opera discredits the musical in- tegrity of 18th-century listeners as a whole. Though drawing parallels between periods is always danger- us, one is tempted to compare the place of opera in London, Paris or Venice in the 1760s within élite so- cial life to that of professional football in the United States or leading race meetings in England. Many of the singers—even more often the dancers—served as high-level prostitutes, occasionally marrying the wealthy men who pursued them. The connoisseurs who flocked to Haydn's concerts in London in 1791 ‘would have been unhappy to hear that the serious- ness of their musical culture would be judged solely by what went on in the Pergola or the King’s ‘Theatre, One would probably not have encountered as much variation in etiquette at the Concert Spir- ituel in Paris or the events J. P. Salomon put on for Haydn in the Hanover Square Rooms. Before the rise of public opera and concerts there existed social contexts where music was performed with attendant religious or social purposes separate from the music, but where quite serious music-mak- ing took place. ‘The closest 18th-century parallels with the most distinguished orchestral concerts of the igth century lay in the sung services at cathedrals, where works by the most highly regarded composers were performed. Even though the celebration of the liturgy came first in priority, the music was very much on view for a substantial part of those present. In some contexts we can see traditions of lay in- volvement with music ofa learned nature that can be traced right back to the Middle Ages. In England evensong often served as a showpiece for the musi- cians and was attended by laymen specially inter- ested in sacred music. In Flanders lay contraternities of the 16th century commissioned important poly- phonic works.* Orchestral concerts such as the Vienna Philharmonic and the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in Paris were successors to these institutions. Lydia Goehr helps us understand all this: she makes the perceptive suggestion that social structures can give music autonomy by sequestering ne kind of context and taste from another.» 688 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 Performances at 8th-century salons can be traced back to the musical traditions of courts, where pat- rons with active musical interests put on music on an informal or occasional basis, most often simply after dinner. By the 18th century performances at some salons served important roles within musical life as a whole. Connoisseurs such as Baron Alvens- leben in London, Baron van Swieten in Vienna, and ‘Alexandre Le Riche de la Poupliniare in Paris hosted musical gatherings focused upon appearances by touring musicians; these gentlemen thereby served as the gate-keepers of their cities’ musical worlds. At the salons of musically less active hosts, of course, performances were probably accompanied by a good deal more noise, and during the 1830s the term ‘salon music’ was associated with the lesser kinds of virtu- ‘080 composition. Barbara R. Hanning has brought a fresh perspec- tive to the famous paintings of music in the Paris sa- ons: She has followed the discovery of art histor- ians in arguing that pictures of human activity were not meant to depict a specific or frozen moment in time, but rather to ‘telescope’ or “ensemblize’ events, happening progressively within a social context. Bearing this in mind, we can no longer interpret these pictures as showing that people talked while Mozart performed (illus.1). On the contrary, Han- ning demonstrates how the etiquette of proper con- versation, about which a great deal was written in the time, held that it was inappropriate to talk at the same time as anyone else. That rule probably applied to music as wel, at least at salons where prominent singers or instrumentalists performed. ‘Here again we find means by which we can better understand the sociable nature of listening in the a8th century. Hanning approaches the performances at the salons through the style dialogué, the idiom of instrumental writing common in the late 18th-cen- tury in which the different voices are assigned the melody successively and interact in a conversational ‘manner. Arguing that the idiom bore a relationship with the thinking about conversation in the period, she portrays the musical dialogue as a close relative of conversation: just as the ‘waiting’ instruments that ‘promise a varied pro- fram’ suggest a broader time-frame forthe scene than a few ‘moments of musical performance would require, s0 too theots ho sc Be ete Rca te ae stn rein earsag wine ot Prhpe te pins Shoat the pore re sto be pertpting i Stet woud ett ke ple suse do ingibecoure fan en seronon: Kd hes ‘tvs ovale ees, were mae sn ‘Therefore let us not compare the slkce a dhe ‘Conservatory Orchestra of Parsi thertos withthe noise a the Academie Royale de Msigue in the 17905—to dos isto compaceisttutions that per formed quite diferent fnesons. Between e750 fn8g0 3 fundamental set of changes ocurred in the location of the most learned ana serous bstening within muscle The main place where learned rusian and amateurs met shied fom sacred ‘music to publi institutions sich athe conser tory. In such a fishion did listening participate thin the sacraliation of cular musa le “Theideologyofistening as absorption ‘The most important devlypmant inthe nature of musi listening dung the first half ofthe gt cen try id not come actual behaviour but rather these ofan ideology by which to reform i doube whether in most cies opera audiences (a wel 3s uudiences for many kinds of concerts) quetened ‘oven unt wll into the century. But an ideology of sence became a powerfil movement within mu ‘ol fe el nthe century If Horace Mann could Tit so casually what he might do in his box, ening swith the words ‘or sttend to the msi he ws ‘early troubled by any Hologic! burden. By ‘820, however, no one could have wrt anything ‘of tht cor without fearing grave reprimands from tome quarters "The wetnge on music that appeared on many "Buropean cities during the 1305 ail expanded the oe ofthe msc ert. During the sth centry ‘commentators had only ust begun oestabls role, as independent exits many of them spoke chetor- telly the gui ofthe pul or the connoieur. Jennifer Hall Wit has recenly shown how fully English commentators developed an ideological agenda for music by the end of the 40s they aimed that the middle dass was now listening ‘th fil tention asthe Bes onde had never 6 Avariay of postures rong member of'sn oper aud ‘nce: an stration fm Zar Seas chee Alay gy Ear Were (Ben. 78) done, When a send opera company was begun at (Coveat Garden in yp, attracting more bourgeois ad laser tiled people than the Queen's Theaue, the cre claimed thet the productions respected the mac a8 tue artworks, Hot Hal-Wit aso shows that thee dims were dubious, and that ommenisors backed avay fom them in the 285052 Indeed frm it tae in 77 aistocrats had led the Concert of Aatint Music the Bist concert sercs witha canonic repertory, mounted with an tunusually dignified socal demeanour. What did Change in the ios, Dowever was that the aisto- trate dique that had shaped the world of Kaan pera in the eal 8th century now lived @ more vate extence, mewting moce ibis residences fhan at he opera, EARLY Must wovEsHER 1997 669By now it should be clear that enquiry into the nature of musical canon must be at the core of our discussion of the problem of listening in the 19th century. The powerful meanings that colour the words that describe how people listen derive ulti- mately from the establishment of aesthetic and ideo- logical authority, and the rise of canonically defined repertories constituted a major new form of musical authority. The necessity for utter silence and absence of movement in the concert hall came with the recognition of classics as the core of musical taste. ‘This cultural transformation developed both earlier and later than is often assumed. The first canonic repertory can be seen in Britain by the 1780s, but principles such as we adhere to now were not firmly established within musical life until after 1850, and the strict separation of contemporary and classical repertories came essentially after World War II. Itis ‘only by tracing the evolution of canonic thinking on music that we can obtain a more sophisticated sense of the principles behind listening, But it is important to remember that people still acted quite informally im many kinds of concerts during the 19th century. Promenade concerts, which became the rage in Paris and London during the 1830s and 4os, were but the first of a great variety of, events where one might sit looking at an ensemble or walk, talk or listen—though the professionalism of the playing deserved close attention. Similar kinds of mixed etiquette were developed for band concerts by highly trained ensembles which often played classi- cal works. These concerts were central to musical life in many places; in the United States John Phillip Sousa kept people's attention even though they did not have to listen. Thus did the 19th century put a new spin on the 18th-century mode of informal music-making ‘We will never be able to document audience be- haviour in 18th-century concert halls with much precision. One thing is clear, however: a major factor behind the rise of stricter etiquette as the 19th cen- tury progressed was the disappearance of the beaw monde at the core of public cultural events. By 1900 there were simply too many rich and influential people in the major cities for them all to know one another, and the focus of their lives shifted from. public to private locales. Once there was no longer a 690 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 tightly-knit little world of upper-class people ruling ‘musical life, there was les talk and movement dur- ing performances. Moreover, during the middle of the century the upper classes tended to withdraw from the highly public, unembarrassed sexual lib- ertinage that had existed prominently in major cities since the early 18th century. Part of the ideological impetus of the new etiquette in musical life came from the moral critique of this weakening tradition. The assertion that the bourgeoisie listened more se- riously than the nobility was closely linked to issues of sexual mores. Have social conditions changed fundamentally in musical life since 17502 While there no longer exists a tight élite world such as we have been discussing, the reasons why people attend classical-music concerts have not changed completely. I go to many events because acquaintances are performing, because I ‘would like to see some friends, or because I want to take in the scene at a new contemporary-music space. I also sense a certain continuity with the past ‘when my friends insist on talking during the out- door jazz concerts of the talented municipal band in my town. The social and cultural life of the modern big city, and the patterns of social activity it brought about, began in the 18th century. Ultimately, active concert- and opera-goers of 1750 and 1997 have much more in common with one another than courtiers of 1600 had with either group. While we have different etiquette and listening habits from people of 250 years ago, we share with them an expe- rience of music that is essentially public. That they conducted other kinds of business during perfor- ‘mances more often than we do does not deny the integrity oftheir listening, ——— Early music February 1998 Read about Lassus’s most famous piece # The countertenor in Tudor England ® An Italian harpsichord # A collection of airs de cour in the British Library # Recent recordings of Ockeghem ¥ and much, much more1 am indebted to Bruce Brown and Jn rife Hall Wit for comments om thi paper. 2 P. Gay. The bourgeois experience: Vie tora to Freud, iv The naked heart, (New York 1955) pa 2 See W. Weber," Wagner, Wagnerism and musical idealism’, Wagner in European cule an politic, ed. D.C. Large and W. Weber (Ithac, 1984), pram. 3 J-H. Johnson, Listening in Paris. a elturat history (Berkeley, 995) See also his Musical experience and the formation ofa French musical public, Journal of moder story, iv (0993), ppipi=ans 4 Johoson, Listening in Paris, pa. 5 See W. Weber, review in American Instorical eve cs (998), ps4 6 Gay, The naked hears, preface, The art of listening’ ppat-35. 7 Gay, The naked heart, p22 8G 9 W.].Allenbrook, Rhythmic gesture jn Mozar's ‘Le nozze di Figaro" and ‘Don Giovanni” (Chicago, 1983). to R. Leppert, The social discipline of listening. forthcoming in proceedings ‘of conference held at the Max Planck Institu fur Geschichte, Gottingen, July 1996, ‘Concert et public: mutation de la vie musicale en Europe de 780 31514 The naked hear, pss, un L. Goehe, The imaginary museum of ‘musical works (Oxford, 1992) 12 See C. Price, Milhous and RD. Hume, The impresaro’s ten commands ments: Continental recruitment for Ital- jan opera in London, 1763-64 (London, 1992) and Italian opera i late eigh- teenth-century London, i: The King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 178-1791 (Oxford, 1095) esp. pa22, 13 Goehr, The imaginary muscu, Piva 14, Goch, The aginary seam, puss by See, Weber, ‘Learned and general Imus taste eightenthecetury France’ Ps and pre (to) ps8 36 The Diary of Dudley Ryde, Is-iné el. W. Matthews (London, 1959) Pasty. Lan indeed for this reference to H. Knif, Gentlemen and spectators: studies in journals, opera dnd the social scene in late Georgian {London (Helsinki 1995), pp70-73 17 Weekly Journal or, Saturdays Post 18 Dec 1825, quoted in E Gibson, The Royal Academy of Musi, 719-1738: the institution and is directors (New York, 1989) p.388. A similar social scene is described in B. Brown, Gluck andthe French theatre in Vienna (Oxford, 1991), chap.2, p26. 18 W. Weber, ‘Linstitation et son public: Vopéra Pars et & Londres au XVIlle see’, Annales ESC, bv (1993), ppasio-vo. 1g Susan MeClary speaks diretly to the introspective tradition in "Nata tives of bourgeois subjectivity in ‘Mozart’ “Prague” Symphony’, Under standing narrative, ed. J. Phelan and P. Rabinowitz (Columbus, OH, 1994). PPs5-98, 20 W. Holmes, ‘The Teatro della Per sola in Florence: its administration, building and its audience’, Musica franca: stays ir honor of Frank A D'Accone, ed. |. Alm, A. McLamore and C. Reardon (Stuyvesant, NY 1996). pp3s0-82 2 Holmes, ‘The Teatro della Pergo’ ppar-2 23 Holmes, ‘The Teatro della Pergola’, pp276-7, 23 Holmes, “The Teatro della Pergo’, pa. 24 See H. Kingsbury, Musi, talent and performance: a conservatory cultural sys tem (Philadelphia, 1988), esp. chap.t, ‘Social context and absolute music 25 The Yale edition ofthe correspon dence of Horace Walpole, 48 vols. (New Haven and Oxford, 1961-8), xvi, 495 (6 Aug 744). 26 See Richard Mount-Edgcumbe, ‘Musial reminiscences ofa old amateur chiefly especing the Taian opera in England, (London, 21827), 27 Price, Milhous and Hume, lain ‘opera in at eighteenth-century London, sexi, pp.26, 181-4 222, 234-5, 266-7, Heer letters are found in the ritsh Lib rary, Egerton Ms.691, and in the Berg, Collection at the New York Public Lib- 28 Letter to Mme. D’Arblay,29 June 1778, overleaf, Berg Collection, 29 Price, Milhous and Hume, Italian ‘opera in ite eightenth-century London, xa pp.a77-81, and passim, 30 Price, Milhous and Home, tliat ‘opera in late eightenth-century London, xa, pa, 31 Tam indebted tothe Hoon. Caroline Douglas-Home for acces tothe origi nal ofthe letters and diaries of Lady Mary Coke, Coldstream, Berwickshire, and tothe Lewis Walpole Library of the Yale University Library for use of photocopy ofthe manuscript. The fist 45 years ofthe diary (1759-74) are found in The letters and journals of Lady Mary Coke, ed. J. A. Home, 4 vos. (Edinburgh, 1889-96): see ‘Some account of John Duke of Argyll and his family’, by Lady Louisa Stuart in 1827, i, ppxv-cxxi See likewise Corres pondance complete de ia marguise du Deffand, ed. L. Dussieux and E. Soule 2 vols. (Paris, 1865), C--J-P. Hénault to Deffand, g Ful 374244, 41 18 July. 69-71:29 July is 74 32 K Forney, Musi, ritual and pat- Tonage at the Church of Our Lady, Antwerp’, Early music history, vii (Cambridge, 1987), pps. 33 Presentation at Retheorizing Music Conference, University of California, vine, December 1994, 24 B.R, Hanning, “The iconography of the salon concert: a reappraisal’, French ‘musical thought, 600-1800, eG Cowart (Ann Arbor, 1989), Pp129—a8: and ‘Conversation and musical style in the late eighteenth-century Parisian salon’, Fighteenth-contury studies, xxi (0989), pp.si2-28. On ‘ensemblization’, see N. Bryson, Word and image: French ‘painting in the ancien régime (Cam= bridge, 1981), 35 Hanning, ‘Conversation and ‘musical style’, p28 446 J. Hall. Witt, The re-fashioning of Fashionable society opera going and sociability im England, 1821-61 (PhD diss, Yale U.,1996). 37 The historian Leonard Berlanstein is doing important work on this sub- jects see ‘Breeches and breaches cross- dress theater and culture of gender ambiguity in modern France’, Compar- ative studies in society and history, scexvil (1996), ppas#-6s. EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1997 691