Book contents
- Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Musical Benefits in the London Theatre: Networks and Repertories
- Part II Beyond London: Mimicry or Originality?
- Part III Benefits and Public Image
- 7 English Music in Benefit Concerts: Henry Purcell and the Next Generation
- 8 Strategies of Performance: Benefits, Professional Singers, and Italian Opera in the Early Eighteenth Century
- Part IV Charity Benefits
- Part V The Role of the Audience
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Musical Works
- General Index
7 - English Music in Benefit Concerts: Henry Purcell and the Next Generation
from Part III - Benefits and Public Image
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2019
- Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Musical Benefits in the London Theatre: Networks and Repertories
- Part II Beyond London: Mimicry or Originality?
- Part III Benefits and Public Image
- 7 English Music in Benefit Concerts: Henry Purcell and the Next Generation
- 8 Strategies of Performance: Benefits, Professional Singers, and Italian Opera in the Early Eighteenth Century
- Part IV Charity Benefits
- Part V The Role of the Audience
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Musical Works
- General Index
Summary
The benefit concert was an offshoot of the Restoration tradition whereby an individual or group of individuals would receive the proceeds from one night’s performance in the playhouse. Musical entertainments were added as bait to increase attendance. Starting in the 1690s, the benefit concert flourished with the proliferation of dedicated concert spaces (York Buildings) as well as repurposed onces (Hickford’s Dancing School and Stationers’ Hall). In this essay, I will show the significant role English composers and their music played in these benefit concerts from the 1690s to 1714. Through an examination of newspaper advertisements and other suriving sources I will reconstruct the repertory for these benefits, demonstrating the continued importance of native music and musicians even as foreign composers and performers flooded the market.
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- Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain , pp. 145 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019