Romanticism and Music Culture in Britain, 17701840 Virtue and Virtuosity [Paperback]

This book surveys the role of music in British culture throughout the long Romantic period.Music permeated Georgian life and culture, and this book argues for its crucial influence on Romantic literary production. Combining archival research with original readings, Wood finds in the long-running debate over virtuosity both the lure of aristocratic luxury and the threats of machine technology and the professionalization of Romantic culture.Music permeated Georgian life and culture, and this book argues for its crucial influence on Romantic literary production. Combining archival research with original readings, Wood finds in the long-running debate over virtuosity both the lure of aristocratic luxury and the threats of machine technology and the professionalization of Romantic culture.Music was central to everyday life and expression in late Georgian Britain, and this is the first interdisciplinary study of its impact on Romantic literature. Focusing on the public fascination with virtuoso performance, Gillen D'Arcy Wood documents a struggle between sober literary' virtue and luxurious, effeminate virtuosity that staged deep anxieties over class, cosmopolitanism, machine technology, and the professionalization of culture. A remarkable synthesis of cultural history and literary criticism, this book opens new perspectives on key Romantic authors  including Burney, Wordsworth, Austen and Byron  and their relationship to definitive debates in late Georgian culture.Preface; Introduction. Virtuosophobia; 1. Seward's Handelomania; 2. The Burney baroque; 3. Wordsworth castrato; 4. Cockney Mozart; 5. Austen's accomplishment; 6. The Byron of the piano; Coda. The mechanical nightingale. An elegantly sober manner and unflagging diligence underlie the book's many virtues. But to my mind the constant surprises and--it bears repeating--the brilliant execution make this a consummately virtuoso performance.
-Marshall Brown, www.nbol-19.org