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During Schubert's lifetime, cultural events in Vienna were rarely one-dimensional. Rather, they combined different forms of expression to create complex aesthetic experiences: instrumental music was combined with operatic excerpts, poetry recitations, scenic performances, or tableaux vivants-whether in concert halls or in private salons. This volume, based primarily on contributions from the conference "Combining the Arts. Multimedia Performances in the early 19th-Century Habsburg Empire" examines these diverse intermedia practices in the cultural context of the early 19th century. The authors (musicologists, theater and literature scholars, and art historians) analyze previously neglected forms of artistic interconnection with an interdisciplinary approach and shed light on the structural, spatial, and social conditions of multimedia performances in Schubert's Vienna. The focus is not only on works and artistic genres, but also on the actors involved (such as the singer Johann Michael Vogl, the playwright and salonnière Caroline Pichler, and aristocratic dilettantes who performed theatrical and operatic works), venues (salons, ballrooms, theaters, etc.), institutional structures, and media constellations. The book thus offers a multifaceted contribution to the study of artistic interaction and aesthetic perception in the cultural fabric of the Habsburg Empire-far beyond the realm of music history.
