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21 results

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  • Handel as Miscellany

  • Alison DeSimone
  • Journal:
    Eighteenth-Century Music / Volume 20 / Issue 1 / March 2023
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    08 February 2023, pp. 61-80
    Print publication:
    March 2023

  • During the early eighteenth century, music composed by George Frideric Handel began to circulate in miscellaneous publications of songs and arias. His music appeared in various forms. Some publications, such as four notable pocket collections published in the mid-1720s, preserve the music largely unchanged, although within a new sonic context. Other publications completely transform arias and even overtures into vocal works with new texts, creating layers of musical associations and meanings. Unauthorized appearances of Handel's music in songbook miscellanies and single-sided prints show alternative ways in which consumers may have heard and experienced the composer outside of the opera house or a concert setting. Examining these alternative sources for Handel's music allows for an enriched assessment of which works of the composer were critically and commercially appreciated during the early eighteenth century. Analysing appearances of Handel's music in songbook anthologies also offers insight into how musical miscellanies became ubiquitous forms of the production and reception of his works in the early eighteenth century.

  • 8 - Strategies of Performance: Benefits, Professional Singers, and Italian Opera in the Early Eighteenth Century

  • from Part III - Benefits and Public Image
  • Edited by Matthew Gardner, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany, Alison DeSimone, University of Missouri, Kansas City
  • Book:
    Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
    Published online:
    30 October 2019
    Print publication:
    31 October 2019, pp 162-184

  • Summary

    This chapter considers how professional singers used benefit concerts to facilitate their exposure and to establish their reputations between 1703 and 1729 – years inclusive of the earliest Italian opera performances in England through the Royal Academy of Music. First, it will document the patterns and conventions apparent in benefits given by professional Italian and English singers, emphasizing the different kinds of concerts and opera benefits, the pros and cons of each, and the ways in which these events were tailored to fit the singers. For the bulk of the chapter, I will focus on three clear motivations behind concert benefits for singers of Italian opera. My survey of advertisements shows that singers used these special performances in order (1) to collaborate within a network of professional musicians; (2) to create and promote their individual celebrity; and (3)to construct and respond to particular narratives about contemporary musical taste.

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Matthew Gardner, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany, Alison DeSimone, University of Missouri, Kansas City
  • Book:
    Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
    Published online:
    30 October 2019
    Print publication:
    31 October 2019, pp 1-20

  • Summary

    This introduction provides an overview of Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain, first by introducing the mechanics of musical benefits in the eighteenth century, followed by a literature review of prior research into the subject. We then offer a discussion of themes that emerge throughout the book, including networking and repertories, benefits beyond London, benefits and public image, the emergence of charity benefits, and finally, the role of the audience.

Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
  • Edited by Matthew Gardner, Alison DeSimone
  • Published online:
    30 October 2019
    Print publication:
    31 October 2019
  • In the early eighteenth century, the benefit performance became an essential component of commercial music-making in Britain. Benefits, adapted from the spoken theatre, provided a new model from which instrumentalists, singers, and composers could reap financial and professional rewards. Benefits could be given as theatre pieces, concerts, or opera performances for the benefit of individual performers; or in aid of specific organizations. The benefit changed Britain's musico-theatrical landscape during this time and these special performances became a prototype for similar types of events in other European and American cities. Indeed, the charity benefit became a musical phenomenon in its own right, leading, for example, to the lasting success of Handel's Messiah. By examining benefits from a musical perspective - including performers, audiences, and institutions - the twelve chapters in this collection present the first study of the various ways in which music became associated with the benefit system in eighteenth-century Britain.

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