Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-x5cpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-25T20:22:51.191Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Amateur Music-Making, Theatre Performances, and Benefit Concerts in Edinburgh

from Part II - Beyond London: Mimicry or Originality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2019

Matthew Gardner
Affiliation:
Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany
Alison DeSimone
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Kansas City
Get access

Summary

Edinburgh was the first Scottish city where amateur music-making actually formed a major part of a city’s musical life and developed an institutionalized profile. Over the course of the eighteenth century the Edinburgh Musical Society (EMS) eventually created more demand than their members could provide, which led to a growing involvement of professional musicians. In this chapter it will be shown, how the growing professionalization of the concert life was accompanied by an increasing number of benefit events. Like in other regions of the UK, the beneficiaries of these events were mainly the performing musicians themselves. Nevertheless, they did not just follow other British examples as outlined in the other chapters. Through newspaper advertisements, the minutes of the EMS, and other surviving sources, it is possible to closely investigate various benefit concerts in Edinburgh and to distinguish between the different types that were organized either mainly for charitable purposes or that were meant to contribute to the performers’ income. Furthermore, the sources help to reconstruct the background of these events in regard to their venue, their inner structure, and their repertory.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×