Music and the City

What is it about?

Disproportionate presence of works on music in medieval and early modern cities led to a situation where the fundamental change in musical taste that followed nineteenth-century urbanization and cultural embourgeoisement was until recently beyond the interest of urban historians. This thematic volume aims to remedy this situation with a set of articles on the ‘long’ nineteenth century. The ambition is to better to comprehend the history of music in European cities, and thereby to contribute to the rethinking of urban history of this Continent in the time of modernity.

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Why is it important?

Musical taste and public behavior in a theatre cannot always be ascribed to the proportional predominance of the middle class in the auditorium, as was claimed earlier some cities. Modern theatres were places where otherwise impossible social encounters could be made, and where, at the same time, social hierarchies became visible like nowhere else. This thematic issue offers a unique set of studies of European cities that observe these processes in each particular locality. It demonstrates how diverse – and changing – nineteenth-century urban cultural practices actually were.