Music,+Song+and+Status+In+Victorian+Culture

Musical evenings were popular “at home” Victorian entertainments and no instrument was more coveted than the pianoforte. Among the middle classes, the pianoforte became the single most obvious domestic material manifestation of prosperity and social aspiration. Critic Richard Leppert observed that the piano’s “physical presence commonly fetishized materiality [...] and, at the same time, the music to be played on the instrument was valorized precisely because of its immateriality” ( Leppert, 155). For the Victorian //bourgeoisie// striving to feather their nests with every luxurious accoutrement their purses would allow, the piano’s aesthetic value was paramount.An integral component of the fashionable nineteenth-century home, the piano’s mere presence trumpeted a family’s affluence and respectability; accordingly, a correspondent writing for //The// //Musical Times// in 1897 praised the piano’s ability to enhance a room’s “delightful tea corner” ( //The Musical Times//, 83). By the mid-nineteenth century, London was the acknowledged centre of English piano making. Contemporary local directories record roughly 200 manufacturers plying their trade in response to increasing consumer demand. One of the largest piano makers was D'Almaine & Co. Music Publishers & Pianoforte Makers (est. circa 1834), specializing in the manufacture costly Royal, and Royal Concert, pianofortes; however, many more makers were small concerns producing only about two dozen instruments a year, among them the relatively affordable “cottage” piano, competitively priced at £15. While initially prohibitively expensive, pianos became more widely accessible as the century progressed and cheaper and second-hand models appeared on the market. D'Almaine & Co., who had advertised pianofortes for between 25 and 40 guineas in 1856, advertised a sale in 1887 offering new pianos for just 12 guineas (on “easy terms”) shortly after a successful 1844 “pianos for the million” campaign promoted pianos for 10 guineas ( Scott, 46 ). Meanwhile, “hire purchase” schemes were introduced in London and New York, enabling a broader cross-section of society to realize dreams of piano ownership. By the century’s end the piano was a fixture even among lower middle-class and more aspirational working-class households, and an inevitable offshoot of this democratization of music was the six-penny music lesson.As in the previous century, music was still largely considered a feminine accomplishment and remained a cornerstone of female education among the affluent classes. Moreover, the Victorians’ conviction that music was morally improving reaffirmed the importance of musical education for young ladies of “quality,”who spent long, tedious hours at the pianoforte working through exercises outlined in Pelzer's // A Practical Guide to Modem Pianoforte Playing // and Clementi’s “one hundred indispensible piano studies, // Gradus ad Parnassum // ” ( Scott, 52 ). In addition, during the early nineteenth century the piano was not considered a manly pursuit. //The// //Musical Times// (1897) correspondent emphasized: “[y]oung ladies might play the piano or the guitar. For them such trifling was well enough. It added another gun to the battery of their charms. But the idea of an //Englishman// devoting himself to music [...] could not for a moment be entertained. Any effort to carry it out would have involved merciless ridicule [... that] assuredly awaited the youth who [...] took to fiddling instead of killing something” ( //The Musical Times//, 330; italics mine). Nevertheless, despite the pronounced gender bias that restricted amateur players, the popularity of pianos continued apace, inevitably leading to a thriving trade for sheet music publishers. This vastly extended market for drawing-room ballads subsequently helped standardize the genre as “a song with piano accompaniment.” Before long it was a common assumption that songs published with piano accompaniment were intended for “at home” entertainments and while a gentleman might not play, he could certainly sing without courting social disapprobation. Shrewd marketing targeted middle class anxiety over social propriety for, while “the bourgeoisie thought the songs they enjoyed were of unquestionable merit,” they “took comfort in the knowledge that, if a song was described on its sheet as ‘popular,’ it automatically implied that it was regularly performed in respectable homes" ( Scott, ix ). In the early Victorian period sheet music was prohibitively expensive. During the 1830s the cheapest version of Handel’s “Messiah” cost a guinea, while music from a leading music-publishing house, Novello & Co., cost 32 shillings; resultantly, only the wealthy or the resourceful could avail themselves of these early scores. //The// // Musical Times’ // (1897) correspondent observed that earlier in century, “[t]he existence of a copy of an unfamiliar work” was cause for celebration. Moreover, if a score “could be borrowed long enough to transcribe a number or two, great was the rejoicing” and frequently “a subscription would be run till it reached the necessary figure, and the local bookseller received triumphant orders to procure the desired work” ( //The Musical Times//, 329 ). Ballad-broadsides, which originated in the sixteenth century, proved the cheapest means of musical dissemination and took full advantage of the popularity of the ballad form; public demand soared during the Victorian age, keeping approximately 700 ballad-broadside publishers busily catering to a steady market for affordable and varied music. Usually sold on the streets and priced at a penny for three songs, ballad-broadsides were printed “three songs abreast” on one side of a single sheet of extra-wide paper, which a hawker would display fixed to a long pole whilst crying, “Three yards a penny. Songs, songs, songs. Beautiful songs. Newest songs. Popular songs!” ( Mayhew, 221 ). The affordability of ballad sheets suggests that they potentially reached an audience as wide as the literate population, which after the education act of 1870, had rapidly expanded; however, the format also appealed to wealthy buyers who amassed considerable collections.Adventure and comedy were popular ballad-broadside themes, as were songs written in the latest slang and offering //la dernier mot// regarding fashionable mode and behaviour. Love songs and simple “drawing-room” ballads fit for family consumption also found a wide audience. Ballad-broadsides and sheet music were not the only available fare; whether sentimental, devotional, or satirical, the Victorians’ musical repertoire provided something to satisfy every musical taste—from highbrow to lowbrow—including works such as Robert Cootes’s “Quite Too Utterly Utter,” a pointed piece that, like Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience,” gleefully skewered //avant-garde// aesthetic affectation. As songbooks proliferated, escalating middle-class demand for music impacted publishing technology. Wood engraving (time-consuming and costly) had formerly been the preferred medium upon which music publishers relied, but during the 1840s-50s many turned to less expensive lithography and chromolithography. Before long these mediums were reserved for title pages and illustrations rather than musical notation since lithographic images lacked the necessary clarity. Engraving remained the preferred medium for music printing well into the 1860s until supplanted by aluminum and zinc plates. Advances in technology not only affected music printing and piano manufacturing, but also ameliorated distribution. Since London was the centre of British music publishing, wider markets for both pianos and sheet music had been restricted until the advent of the railway. Once networks were established pianos and ballads together travelled farther afield, reaching suburban and country dwellers eagerly awaiting the opportunity to express their affluence and cultural //savoir-faire.//
 * Music, Song, and Status in Victorian Culture **

WF/Engl550/UVic/Fall2013

Clinkscale, Martha Novak. //Makers of the Piano: 1820-1860//. Oxford: UP, 1999. “Facts, Rumours, and Remarks.” //The Musical Times and Singing-Class Circular//. Vol. 34, No. 600 (Feb. 1, 1893). Pp. 82-86. < [] > Leppert, Richard. //The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the History of the Body//. Berkeley: UC Press, 1995. Mayhew, Henry. //London Labour and the London Poor, A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and earnings ofThose that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work//. //Vol. 1//. London: G. Woodfall & Son, 1851. Scott, Derek B. //The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlor//. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 1989. “Victorian Music.” //The Musical Times and Singing-Class Circular//. Vol. 28, No. 532 (June 1, 1887). Pp.329-332. < [] >
 * Works Cited **