Agency and Change: Berlioz in Britain, 1870—1920

Abstract

Far from being always unjustly neglected until the late twentieth century, as a recent view would have it, Berlioz's music enjoyed dedicated attention and considerable admiration a century earlier. His orchestral works, in particular, were taken up by a range of skilful players and conductors in Britain from the 1870s, yielding performances in the English regions, the London suburbs and in Scotland that impressed ordinary listeners much more than many experienced ones. I argue that structural change and professional competition within the British concert industry to 1920 assisted this remarkable reception — largely ignored in the historiography of Berlioz's reputation as well as in that of British musical culture — while imaginative musicians, astute promoters, writers and thousands of listeners continued to benefit from contact with his work. Berlioz's challenging music indeed became an agent of aesthetic change in Britain — a benchmark, and a calling-card, of modern orchestral presentation that was both standard and commonly accessible before the First World War.

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Leanne Langley

Leanne Langley (www.leannelangley.co.uk) is Visiting Fellow in the Department of Music at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has written and lectured widely on the social history of music in Britain, 1750—1950. Her work includes critical studies of music journals and journalists, the early history of the Royal Academy of Music and the London Philharmonic Society, the making of George Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and the function and meaning of the Queen's Hall Proms, 1895—1926. With Simon McVeigh she is currently completing a major investigation of London concert life, 1880—1914, for Cambridge University Press.