Private Music Making

http://www.calambureditorial.com/a/42896/la-musica-en-el-diario-de-barcelona-1792-1850
La música en el ‘Diario de Barcelona’ es una obra única que ofrece al lector una mirada directa al pasado de la Ciudad Condal a través de una de las publicaciones periódicas más influyentes de la prensa a nivel nacional, el Diario de Barcelona. El Diario, que inició su andadura en 1792 y se estuvo imprimiendo sin apenas interrupciones hasta el año 2009, es uno de los testimonios más fieles e ineludibles de la vida social y cultural barcelonesa, así como del resto de España y los territorios de ultramar en esas fechas.
Las noticias recogidas en él componen la materia prima de este volumen, para el que se han seleccionado, entre más de 20.000 ejemplares, aquellos artículos referidos al ámbito musical y el mundo del libro entre los siglos XVIII y XIX. Las distintas noticias han sido ordenadas, numeradas y revisadas para ofrecer una herramienta útil y manejable al investigador, que hallará en sus páginas más de cuatro mil artículos. Este material primario se ve enriquecido por tres textos ensayísticos que preparan la lectura del vaciado y glosan las noticias del Diario en torno a tres ejes temáticos de gran interés: la contribución del DdB a la investigación musicológica, el papel del ocio en la vida de la ciudad y su lugar en el propio periódico y, por último, el seguimiento en el Diario de la fabricación y la venta de instrumentos musicales.
Estos estudios, junto con las tablas conceptuales y el índice analítico que acompañan al repertorio de noticias, permiten un acercamiento más profundo y riguroso al elenco periodístico ofrecido en el libro, que invita al lector a transitar, de primera mano, el bullicioso ajetreo cotidiano de la capital catalana.

Because church music served no liturgical function in the Zwinglian cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy, music was largely pushed into the private sphere.  From 1600 on, the thirst for music in parts gave rise to the development of Collegia Musica in the reformed cities of German-speaking Switzerland.  These organizations recruited their members from the middle classes, who enjoyed a musical education from a young age.  The statutes of the Collegia Musica show that their members brought their own instruments and sheet music to the Collegium and occasionally took them home as well.  Gifts of sheet music, instruments or money from individual donors to the Aargauer Musikkollegium demonstrate the widespread importance of music within the middle class, and documents from Winterthur show that certain musical townspeople made extensive donations of music to the Collegia.  The breadth of the musical repertoire documented is quite astonishing, ranging from music published in German-speaking regions and northern Italy to compositions from Catholic areas and even some pieces from the 16th century.  At the same time, however, figures such as the Zurich merchant Salomon Ott (1653-1711) owned the latest musical prints and also favored much-frowned-upon dance music.

In the public conscious, music is usually about performing, especially with a large audience in mind. Any music made in private is mostly seen as only ‘practicing’ for the purposes of that end, rather than an end in itself, and that such private music-making activities are not ‘real music’ or even viewed as indulgent ‘self-pleasuring’ (Killick 2006). However, far from being unimportant, making music in private or solitude can form an enriching and useful function in our lives beyond the concert hall or jam session.

For an instrument which embodies the private musicking paradigm the most, the guqin Chinese seven-string zither could arguably be considered the most representative. An instrument of the literati, it has a history of a different ideology and purpose compared to other instruments in that it was seen as an instrument of self-cultivation, only played by and for oneself, or with a few appreciative friends as the only audience, or before a crane, the Moon, or with plum-blossoms listening in.

From examining the guqin and its traditional culture, we can glimpse many aspects of music which are usually ignored or forgotten about: the meditative and self-cultivatory aspects of the music, music solely for one’s enjoyment, music and nature’s intertwinement, and music for music’s sake. In restoring importance to private music-making, we may be able to infuse and inform other outwardly-focused music-making traditions to look inwards and discover things they might not have realised were possible or important as before.

Presented at the BFE Annual Conference 2022, 7th April, 1700 BST.

In the public conscious, music is usually about performing, especially with a large audience in mind. Any music made in private is mostly seen as only ‘practicing’ for the purposes of that end, rather than an end in itself, and that such private music-making activities are not ‘real music’ or even viewed as indulgent ‘self-pleasuring’ (Killick 2006). However, far from being unimportant, making music in private or solitude can form an enriching and useful function in our lives beyond the concert hall or jam session.

For an instrument which embodies the private musicking paradigm the most, the guqin Chinese seven-string zither could arguably be considered the most representative. An instrument of the literati, it has a history of a different ideology and purpose compared to other instruments in that it was seen as an instrument of self-cultivation, only played by and for oneself, or with a few appreciative friends as the only audience, or before a crane, the Moon, or with plum-blossoms listening in.

From examining the guqin and its traditional culture, we can glimpse many aspects of music which are usually ignored or forgotten about: the meditative and self-cultivatory aspects of the music, music solely for one’s enjoyment, music and nature’s intertwinement, and music for music’s sake. In restoring importance to private music-making, we may be able to infuse and inform other outwardly-focused music-making traditions to look inwards and discover things they might not have realised were possible or important as before.

Presented at the BFE Annual Conference 2022, 7th April, 1700 BST.

Based almost entirely on unpublished ego documents (private correspondence, diaries, etc.), this book shows how nineteenth-century Dutch music lovers experienced music and integrated their musical activities in their private lives. The book covers aspects such as going to the opera, visiting public and (semi-) private concerts, the culture of listening, home music making (with special attention for the role of the piano in female music making), music festivals, the question of musical national identity, the (contested) emergence of the canon, the furnishing of special music rooms at home as an expression of one's music preferences, and the rediscovery of early music and Bach's Matthew Passion.