Sociability, Reception, and Canon Formation

Nancy November

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• Early nineteenth-century composers, publishers and writers evolved influential ideals of Beethoven’s symphonies as untouchable masterpieces. Meanwhile, many and various arrangements of symphonies, principally for amateur performers, supported diverse and ‘hands-on’ cultivation of the same works. Now mostly forgotten, these arrangements served a vital function in nineteenth-century musical life, extending works’ meanings and reach, especially to women in the home. This book places domestic music-making back into the history of the classical symphony. It investigates a largely untapped wealth of early nineteenth-century arrangements of symphonies by Beethoven – for piano, string quartet, mixed quintet and other ensembles. The study focuses on three key agents in the nineteenth-century culture of musical arrangement: arrangers, publishers and performers. It investigates significant functions of those musical arrangements in the era: sociability, reception and canon formation. The volume also explores how conceptions of Beethoven’s symphonies, and their arrangement, changed across the era with changing conception of musical works.

  • Enhances understanding of nineteenth-century reception and canon formation by focusing on nineteenth-century arrangers, publishers, performers, and sociability
  • Investigates a largely untapped wealth of early nineteenth-century arrangements of symphonies by Beethoven, revealing how they would have been experienced by the majority of his contemporaries
  • Explores how conceptions of Beethoven’s symphonies, and their arrangement, changed across the nineteenth century