Author: Oscar George Theodore Sonneck

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-26

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9781330207079

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Excerpt from Early Concert-Life in America (1731-1800) With this book I attempt to lay the historical foundations of one important side of our country's musical life. Intended as a source-book, it is addressed to those seriously interested in musical history and it is cast in a form peculiar to source-books, which necessarily resemble mosaics and - mosaics are not to everybody's taste. While I have taken pains to leave as little dust as possible on these pages, I fear that they lack that literary brilliancy which makes, at first reading, even a poor book attractive. Those sterner critics who will take issue with me on that score I beg to remember how very difficult a task it is to turn a virgin-forest into a garden. On the other hand, as this work is addressed to the student more than to the amateur, his familiarity with the history of music in Europe was taken for granted. Therefore European conditions were discussed only where I disagreed with current doctrines, where a European background was necessary for the proper historical perspective, or, where danger-signals might be helpful. References to early opera in America were kept as brief as possible because I hope to complete a comprehensive essay on this subject before long. For the same reason, other topics, bearing indirectly on our early concert life, were kept in the background. Similarly, biographical and bibliographical data were included in so far only as they seemed called for or affected the biographical notes given in the index to my Bibliography of Early Secular American Music. In order to preserve as much of the eighteenth century flavor as possible, names have been spelled as they appeared in my sources and only, when it would have been cruel to let the reader wrestle with the printer's devil, have I adopted the form now commonly used. Probably it will also prevent confusion if I remark that, as a rule and for obvious reasons, not the earliest announcements but those nearest to the date fixed for the concert have been quoted. The data on concerts given in our country until 1750 have been published in form of a separate article in the New Music Review, 1906. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Download or read book Early Concert-Life in America (1731-1800) written by Oscar George Theodore Sonneck and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Early Concert-Life in America (1731-1800) With this book I attempt to lay the historical foundations of one important side of our country's musical life. Intended as a source-book, it is addressed to those seriously interested in musical history and it is cast in a form peculiar to source-books, which necessarily resemble mosaics and - mosaics are not to everybody's taste. While I have taken pains to leave as little dust as possible on these pages, I fear that they lack that literary brilliancy which makes, at first reading, even a poor book attractive. Those sterner critics who will take issue with me on that score I beg to remember how very difficult a task it is to turn a virgin-forest into a garden. On the other hand, as this work is addressed to the student more than to the amateur, his familiarity with the history of music in Europe was taken for granted. Therefore European conditions were discussed only where I disagreed with current doctrines, where a European background was necessary for the proper historical perspective, or, where danger-signals might be helpful. References to early opera in America were kept as brief as possible because I hope to complete a comprehensive essay on this subject before long. For the same reason, other topics, bearing indirectly on our early concert life, were kept in the background. Similarly, biographical and bibliographical data were included in so far only as they seemed called for or affected the biographical notes given in the index to my Bibliography of Early Secular American Music. In order to preserve as much of the eighteenth century flavor as possible, names have been spelled as they appeared in my sources and only, when it would have been cruel to let the reader wrestle with the printer's devil, have I adopted the form now commonly used. Probably it will also prevent confusion if I remark that, as a rule and for obvious reasons, not the earliest announcements but those nearest to the date fixed for the concert have been quoted. The data on concerts given in our country until 1750 have been published in form of a separate article in the New Music Review, 1906. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.