Listening in Paris
eBook - PDF

Listening in Paris

A Cultural History

  1. 363 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Listening in Paris

A Cultural History

About this book

Beginning with the simple question, "Why did audiences grow silent?" Listening in Paris gives 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. James H. Johnson recreates the experience of audiences during these rich decades with brio and wit. Woven into the narrative is an analysis of the political, musical, and aesthetic factors that produced more engaged listening. Johnson shows the gradual pacification of audiences from loud and unruly listeners to the attentive public we know today. Drawing from a wide range of sources—novels, memoirs, police files, personal correspondence, newspaper reviews, architectural plans, and the like—Johnson brings the performances to life: the hubbub of eighteenth-century opera, the exuberance of Revolutionary audiences, Napoleon's musical authoritarianism, the bourgeoisie's polite consideration. He singles out the music of Gluck, Haydn, Rossini, and Beethoven as especially important in forging new ways of hearing. This book's theoretical edge will appeal to cultural and intellectual historians in many fields and periods.

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Yes, you can access Listening in Paris by James H. Johnson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & European History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Illustrations
  3. Musical Examples
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Introduction
  6. PART ONE. The Rendezvous of the Rich
  7. 1. Opera as Social Duty
  8. 2. Expression as Imitation
  9. PART TWO. A Sensitive Public
  10. 3. Tears and the New Attentiveness
  11. 4. Concerts in the Old Regime
  12. 5. Harmony’s Passions and the Public
  13. PART THREE. The Exaltation of the Masses
  14. 6. Entertainment and the Revolution
  15. 7. Musical Experience of the Terror
  16. 8. Musical Expression and Jacobin Ideology
  17. EPILOGUE TO PART THREE. Thermidor and the Return of Entertainment
  18. PART FOUR. Respectability and the Bourgeoisie
  19. 9. Napoleon’s Show
  20. 10. The Théâtre Italien and Its Elites
  21. 11. The Birth of Public Concerts
  22. 12 In Search of Harmony’s Sentiments
  23. 13. The Social Roots of Silence
  24. PART FIVE. The Musical Experience of Romanticism
  25. 14. Operatic Rebirth and the Return of Grandeur
  26. 15. Beethoven Triumphant
  27. 16. The Musical Experience of Romanticism
  28. Afterword
  29. Notes
  30. Bibliography
  31. Index