Moving between absolutist Prussia, urban bourgeois Leipzig, and late Hanoverian/early Victorian Britain, Felix Mendelssohn experienced and actively engaged with the (cultural) politics of pre-1848 Europe. His correspondence reveals him to have been distinctly inclined towards a reformist, liberal standpoint, yet increasingly sceptical of the political difference he or art could make. Despite remaining in Berlin, Fanny Hensel (as well as their younger sister Rebecka) appears to have greater radical sympathies – this in marked contrast to the conservative politics of her husband Wilhelm Hensel.

One of Mendelssohn’s most lasting historical legacies is his role in founding the Leipzig Conservatory, which became a model for higher musical training across Europe. Unlike Italy and France, prior to 1843 Germany had no conservatories. Mendelssohn proved to be a driving force in founding the institution mediating between the city of Leipzig, the Saxon king, the musical elite at home and abroad, and also in the acquisition of startup capital, which drew on all his diplomatic and political skills. As the oldest German Conservatory, the Leipzig Conservatory was a highly successful and sustainable approach to placing the education of musicians on a holistic and professional foundation.

This chapter begins by asking what music is. It first considers the idea that music is ‘humanly organised sound’ before progressing to a definition of music as social interaction. This idea is unpacked throughout the chapter and it is argued that musical interaction is embodied, multivalent and multiply embedded.

This chapter argues that musical interaction is often also economic interaction, involving interdependence and power. It elaborates upon these ideas, discussing both the music industry and the interplay of music and capitalism in doing so. It concludes with a discussion of the distinction between mainstream and alternative music.

The final chapter considers the various ways in which musical interactions might be considered political interactions. It begins with a critical discussion of Adorno’s account of the politics of avant-garde and popular music respectively, moving on to a discussion of the ways in which music might help to create a public sphere. It then considers both how music might serve as a political resource and politics as a musical resource, before discussing the ways in which music worlds sometimes serve to incubate alternative values and identities, potentially prefiguring wider political changes. Music worlds can be political worlds too.

This chapter argues that musical interactions orient around meaning, that the meaningfulness of music is one key reason for its sociological importance, and it offers a discussion of one facet of musical meaning: semiotic meaning. Drawing upon the work of C.S. Peirce in particular, it is argued that various aspects of music function as (meaningful) signs, and that music has both internal and external meanings.

This chapter continues the discussion of taste begun in the previous chapter, considering how tastes are socially distributed. This issue is usually discussed with reference to the work of Bourdieu in music sociology, but this chapter suggests another, more fruitful, path based upon the importance of mutual influence in social networks and Blau’s conception of social space. Much of the chapter is devoted to a discussion of the ways in which music both reflects and reproduces existing social divisions. However, it concludes with a discussion of the ways in which music might bridge and help to narrow social divisions.

This chapter introduces the book, outlining its main argument, setting it in context and providing a brief summary of the content of the chapters which follow.

This chapter picks up on the idea of the mainstream, introduced in the previous chapter, and also the concept of ‘music worlds’, briefly discussed earlier in the book. It elaborates further upon both, developing a concept of a musical universe comprising both a mainstream and multiple alternative music worlds. The chapter concludes with an empirical demonstration of some of these ideas.

Continuing and further developing the theme of meaning from the previous chapter, this chapter explores how music is used by listeners, particularly in the context of their identity work, and how this affects their tastes. It is argued that our stronger musical preferences are often for pieces, artists or genres who have in some way become bound up with our identities and the ongoing work of maintaining them.

This chapter picks up and further develops the idea of ‘networks’, which has been introduced in earlier chapters. Drawing upon formal social network analysis and the body of literature associated with it, it explains how we might think about networks in relation to music, how and why they develop and why they are important. There is an extended discussion of social capital and its relevance to music.