Musical life in nineteenth-century Wales was characterised by the active dissemination of ideas through the publishing of original Welsh music and musical journals. The latter in particular sought to educate as well as to inform, at a time when formal musical education at college or conservatoire was not available. The growth of musical education in Wales was greatly assisted by the emergence of tonic sol-fa as a popular medium, which in turn supported the growth of congregational and choral singing. The chapter discusses the significance of these developments and the extent to which they fostered a Welsh musical tradition. The first part of the chapter considers the relationship between religion, music and education by examining a range of landmark publications, including Cyfaill mewn Llogell (1797). The second part examines the influence of the tonic sol-fa notation system and its popularity in Wales, considering how educational and religious aims coalesced with technological developments to embed the system in the popular musical culture of Welsh communities. It also considers the reasons why some musicians viewed the system negatively and saw it as limiting the progress of Welsh musical practice. The chapter concludes with a survey of music publishing and sales in Wales in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

An immense labour was involved before a composer’s music could reach its public. The journey from first thoughts to first night relied on the collaboration of many individuals operating in interlocking disciplines, and none were more important to that endeavour than music publishers and agents with the firm. In Britten’s case, the most important firms are Boosey & Hawkes and Faber & Faber. This chapter portrays those who worked closely with Britten as his publishers, who supported him and championed his music, including Ralph Hawkes, Erwin Stein, Hans W. Heinsheimer, Ernst Roth, Leslie Boosey, Anthony Gishford, and Donald Mitchell. Many of these individuals formed extremely close relationships with Britten, but equally, their associations were sometimes complex or fraught.

This chapter examines the different music and dance traditions that influenced the development of the Viennese waltz. Dance historians traditionally trace the origins of the waltz in the folk dancing of alpine Central Europe, viewing the rise of the Viennese waltz as a shift away from the cultural influence of the aristocracy in wider social dance practice. Yet the early waltz dances of the Viennese ballroom were shaped by influences that included French courtly dancing as well as Austrian folk music. The early history of the waltz is furthermore complicated by the fact that variants of the waltz dance did not always correspond with specific musical variants in the eighteenth-century ballroom. The development of the waltz highlights the complex network of influences that shaped social dance culture in the public ballrooms of Vienna.

This chapter examines the political, social and economic factors that shaped the early development of Vienna’s public ball culture from the time Joseph II opened the imperial ballrooms to the public in 1772. The number of public dancing venues in the city expanded rapidly in the decades around 1800, resulting in an increased influence of the middle classes over Viennese dance culture, and the rise of a new area of professional musical life. These developments gave dance orchestras a prominent position in Vienna’s musical landscape, and contributed to the emergence of new listening practices associated with dance music.

The story of Stravinsky’s relationships with music publishers is bound up with the political upheavals of the Russian Revolution and two world wars, as well as the copyright laws of countries in which Stravinsky lived and in which his works were published. In the course of his career, his works were published by a bewildering array of firms including M.P. Belaieff, P. Jurgenson, Édition Russe de musique, Adolphe Henn, J. & W. Chester, Éditions de la Sirène, B. Schotts Söhne, Associated Music Publishers, Leeds Music, Mercury Music Corporation, Charling Music, Edward B. Marks, Edwin Kalmus and Boosey & Hawkes. Stravinsky’s Le Faune et la Bergère (1906) was published by the Russian firm of Belaieff which had an office in Leipzig, its aim being to secure Western European copyrights for Russian composers (notably Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky’s teacher). Although Fireworks was issued by the German firm of Schott in November 1909, most of the other works from Stravinsky’s early years up to and including The Firebird (1910) were issued by P. Jurgenson in Moscow. Founded in 1861, by 1900 it was much the largest music publisher in Russia and remained in the hands of the family until the firm was expropriated on Lenin’s orders in 1918, its catalogue forming the basis of the nationalised State Music Publishing House.

Viennese courtly Kapellen were in decline by the time Beethoven began his career as a symphonist, with the result that one of the most important contexts for eighteenth-century symphonies was no longer available to the young generation of composers. This decline, along with various other developments in Viennese musical life during Beethoven’s lifetime, led to a reconfiguration of the symphony’s role. Public, rather than private concerts became the main platform for symphonic performance in Vienna and abroad by 1800. The organisation of Vienna’s concert life meant that symphonies were increasingly conceived as grand, individualistic works, rather than routine household entertainment music. Furthermore, select members of the Viennese aristocracy, including some of Beethoven’s supporters, continued to cultivate symphonies, with the result that Beethoven was better placed than some of his contemporaries for securing the performance and subsequent publication of symphonies. This chapter contextualises Beethoven’s first three symphonies within the broader culture of symphonic composition and performance at the turn of the nineteenth century.