Empress Marie Therese and Music at the Viennese Court, 1792–1807
Empress Marie Therese and Music at the Viennese Court, 1792–1807
$143.00
USDThis is a study of the musical activities of Empress Marie Therese, one of the most important patrons in the Vienna of Haydn and Beethoven. Building on extensive archival research, including many documents published here for the first time, John A. Rice describes Marie Therese's activities as commissioner, collector and performer of music, and explores the rich and diverse musical culture that she fostered at court. This book, which will be of interest to musicologists, historians of artistic patronage and taste, and practitioners of women's studies, elucidates this remarkable woman's relations with a host of professional musicians, including Haydn, and argues that she played a significant and hitherto unsuspected role in the inception of one of the era's greatest masterpieces, Beethoven's Fidelio. Other composers discussed include Domenico Cimarosa, Joseph Eybler, Michael Haydn, Johann Simon Mayr, Ferdinando Paer, Antonio Salieri, Joseph Weigl and Paul Wranitzky.
- Offers a fresh view of musical patronage in a period of crucial importance in the history of western music
- Demonstrates the important role played by a woman in a system of musical patronage hitherto thought to have been dominated by men
- Includes primary source material such as diaries, correspondence and documents
Reviews & endorsements
"...[a] erudite, detailed, and copiously documented work, the first in-depth study of one of the most important friends of music in the late Classical era." Chester Lane, Symphony
"Assembling detailed information on Viennese musical life at the turn of the 18th century, this well-documented volume makes a significant contribution to the field of musicology... Recommended." Choice
"One cannot help but stand in awe of the scholarship presented in this volume."
Caryl Clark, Journal of the American Musicological Society
Product details
August 2003Hardback
9780521825122
408 pages
242 × 163 × 27 mm
0.718kg
21 b/w illus. 12 tables 22 music examples
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- List of musical examples
- List of abbreviations
- Two intertwining family trees: the Habsburg-Lorraines of Austria and the Bourbons of Spain and Naples
- A note about quotations and transcriptions of documents
- Introduction
- 1. The empress as collector of music
- 2. Marie Therese's musicians
- 3. The empress as soprano
- 4. Private concerts
- 5. Celebrations of Franz's birthday and nameday
- 6. Musical caprice
- 7. Marie Therese's influence on music in the public sphere
- 8. The empress as conceiver, commissioner and shaper of musical works
- 9. Il conte Clò: a birthday cantata from inception to performance
- 10. Joseph Haydn and Beethoven between court and nobility
- Epilogue
- Appendix 1: Marie Therese's collection of church music
- Appendix 2: Marie Therese's musical diary, 1801–3
- Appendix 3: Paer's letters to the empress
- Appendix 4: Correspondence between Paisiello and Marie Therese
- Appendix 5: Documents pertaining to the development and performance of Paer's Il conte Clò
- Bibliography
- Index.
