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This book grew from a simple question. Why did French audiences become silent? Eighteenth-century travelers accounts of the Paris Opera and memoirs of concertgoers describe a busy, preoccupied public, at times loud and at others merely sociable, but seldom deeply attentive.
List of contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: THE RENDEZVOUS OF THE RICH
1
Opera as Social Duty
2
Expression as Imitation
PART TWO: A SENSITIVE PUBLIC
3
Tears and the New Attentiveness
4
Concerts in the Old Regime
5
Harmony's Passions and the Public
PART THREE: THE EXALTATION OF THE MASSES
6
Entertainment and the Revolution
7
Musical Experience of the Terror
8
Musical Expression and Jacobin Ideology
Epilogue
Thermidor and the Return of Entertainment
PART FOUR: RESPECTABILITY AND THE BOURGEOISIE
9
Napoleon's Show
10
The Theatre Italien and Its Elites
11
The Birth of Public Concerts
12
In Search of Harmony's Sentiments
13
The Social Roots of Silence
PART FIVE: THE MUSICAL
EXPERIENCE OF ROMANTICISM
14
Operatic Rebirth and the Return of Grandeur
15
Beethoven Triumphant
16
The Musical Experience of Romanticism
AFTERWORD
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
About the author
James H. Johnson is Assistant Professor of History at Boston University.
Summary
Presents a spectator's-eye view of opera and concert life from the Old Regime to the Romantic era, describing the transformation in musical experience from social event to profound aesthetic encounter. This book offers an analysis of political, musical, and aesthetic factors that produced more engaged listening.
