Description

Martin Eybl

Collectors: Musical Public and Class Consciousness, Vienna 1740–1810

HUN-REN BTK Zenetudományi Intézet, Bartók terem, 1014 Budapest, Táncsics Mihály utca 7.,  2023. november 28., 10 óra

Vienna underwent dynamic social and economic development in the century of the Enlightenment. A historical description of Vienna that focuses on musical practices, instead of composers and their works, comprises consumers on a newly and rapidly developed market of scores, instruments, and music education. The upper middle class considerably expanded their activities in economy, politics, and the arts. When they started collecting music to perform it at their homes, they took over a practice that in earlier times aristocracy had used exclusively to accumulate cultural capital. Together with the corresponding convivial practices, collecting music became a strategic means both to maintain the traditional social rank or to gain a higher position. Identifying collectors we enter a newly established forum of public discourse about music and a field of competition between first and second society, aristocracy and middle class, a field characterized, as the case may be, by exclusion and cooperation between the social ranks.

More information: zti.hu