Debussy’s extensive vocal music spans his entire career. This chapter places it in the context of the work of Debussy’s contemporaries, focusing on the art of singing as it was practised both in art and popular music. Debussy’s strong predilection for song cycles conceived as triptychs is also discussed at length, and an important comparison drawn with the composer most often linked to Debussy, Maurice Ravel.

This chapter focuses on popular culture as seen by the late antique church, in particular as visible through the sermons of Caesarius of Arles. First the key features of Caesarius’ opus are introduced, along with the methodological problems it poses for scholars, including a close discussion of Serm. 1. Caesarius’ ideological programme is discussed, including his use of the concepts of rusticitas and imperitia. The bishop’s concern with the bodily habitus of his congregation is considered next, then his attack on scurriltas, singing and dancing as key features of popular culture. This chapter therefore considers popular culture both substantively and discursively, while exploring the ways in which Caesarius and the church sought to appropriate elements of this popular culture, while at the same time seeking to oppose it, in an ongoing dialectic.

Scat and vocalese are two approaches to jazz vocality. This essay intervenes into dominant narratives of their history, value, and functions and encourages us to conceptualize a broader, contradictory view of what they have been and done. This view both acknowledges the narrative of Louis Armstrong giving birth to scat in 1926 and that scat was widespread far earlier; it points to how scat has occupied both sides of Lindon Barrett’s binary of the singing/signing voice, variously functioning as institutionalized vocality that claims authority by Othering certain music as nonmusical and marginalized vocality denied legibility by hegemonic musical norms. Alongside these reflections on the cultural politics of jazz voice, the reader is guided through explorations of the scat existing before scat; the less-celebrated recordings of the most-celebrated scat singer, Ella Fitzgerald; and the ways scat’s meanings are reshaped by poetry and by lesser-known singers of the past and present.

This chapter explores the ways in which the five novels diverge in their representation of sounds. Chariton seems well aware of what can be achieved by briefly-sketched sound effects, but brief sketches are all we get: he does not suggest that the written word might find it hard to convey varieties of sound. Xenophon is apparently not concerned to communicate sound effects at all. Achilles Tatius offers elaborate rhetoric and sometimes striking imagery in compensation for the written word’s inability to render sound. Both Longus and Heliodorus push their readers (in different ways) to reflect on the problem of communicating sound, each offering a different solution. That of Heliodorus for the representation of sung poetry is a striking advance on anything in the earlier novels, apparently learning from (but also upstaging) Philostratus’ Heroicus.

Chapter 3 discusses the fading of music rituals at elite symposia, which was due in large part to the diminishing cultural significance of the musical arts in defining the aristocrat (a process that was already well underway by the fourth century), an increasing preference for professional entertainments, and the evolution of the upper-class domestic symposion itself. The last of these included the abandonment of rituals marking the transition from meal to symposion, the replacement of the communal wine krater with individualized wine service, and a shift to larger social meals, which new forms of dining architecture accommodated. The group paean and scolia disappeared very quickly. Other forms of organized music-making by dining groups continued in some places during the third century but were nearly obsolete by the middle of the second. It is likely that recital of poetry became at least as common or more common than singing it. In addition to describing these developments, the chapter gives special attention to stories about occasional singing and dancing by diners who engaged in those activities as self-display, performing for others.

The chapter examines the relationships between music, sport and Welsh identity. Focusing on the national rugby union and football teams, it explores the ways in which performances of ‘Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ by players and supporters have contributed to a cohesive sense of national identity. Examples range from its first recorded use prior to the rugby team’s famous victory over the New Zealand All Blacks in 1905 to its part in the Football Association of Wales’s efforts to galvanise supporters during the team’s successful Euro 2016 campaign. It also considers the adoption of popular hymns such as ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah’ and ‘Calon Lân’ by supporters, investigating the extent to which affiliation to the national team takes on a spiritual quality. Drawing on the contributions of popular Welsh artists such as Max Boyce, the chapter also assesses the self-referential nature of connections between musicality and sporting pride in corporate expressions of national identity. It considers the ways in which language, religious practice and social structures encouraged and maintained a culture of massed patriotic singing, and how this has been reimagined and perpetuated in the twenty-first century through a combination of institutional support, technological developments and the influence of social media.

The centrality of congregational singing to nonconformist religious practice in Wales since the eighteenth century has afforded hymnody a significant place in scholarly and popular understandings not only of religion in Wales but also of the place of music in Welsh cultural life more broadly. This chapter examines the influence of both the musical practices and repertoire of Welsh nonconformity. Taking the Aber valley in south Wales as a case study, it explores how diverse influences such as industry, demographics, denominational affiliation and theology shaped the development of nonconformist hymnody from the eighteenth century onwards. It considers the extent to which chapels functioned as a focal point for communal activity, and the prominence of music within the activities that took place, especially the cymanfa ganu and revival meetings. In terms of repertoire, it assesses the musical characteristics of a body of tunes that emerged a century or more later than the period in which Welsh hymn writing flourished in the work of Williams Pantycelyn, Ann Griffiths and others. It considers how these tunes and the texts with which they have been paired have influenced perceptions of Welsh musicality and religious identity within and beyond Welsh nonconformity and beyond the borders of Wales.

Chapter 3 is concerned with the place of desire and disembodiment in queer musical experience. Taking as its focus the writings of John Addington Symonds, this chapter examines the representation of the voice of the chorister in late Victorian literature. The fetishization of the chorister in pederastic texts by Symonds and John Gambril Nicholson forms part of a broader eroticization of childhood innocence in Victorian culture. An examination of Victorian vocal treatises shows how such vocal innocence is figured as arising from the renunciation of the body. In this respect, Symonds’s desire for the singing voice can be understood in the light of psychoanalytic models in which the voice is understood as a Lacanian ‘lost object’. The pederastic listening practices engaged in by Symonds and his contemporaries invite a reassessment of the frequent idealization in queer studies of the singing voice as a space in which sexual desire may be freely and unproblematically explored. The discussion draws upon recent work in queer studies calling for closer engagement with those shameful and embarrassing aspects of queer history that many in the queer community today might prefer to forget.

Chapter 4 proposes that popular opera had a ‘binary identity’ because it was understood as a domestic as well as a public entertainment. ‘Contexts’ begins by establishing the prevalence of singing and amateur acting in France. Privileged groups left behind the best record of activity, but Charles Perrault and Le Cerf de La Viéville stressed that opera melodies were sung throughout all social classes. An article by James Parakilas introduces the notion of private performance as a valid aspect of opera history. Arrangements of French opera are demonstrated through early artefacts from Amsterdam and mid-century periodicals from Paris. Solo versions, with texts, of opera overtures and chaconnes are illustrated and contextualised. Laurent Bordelon’s ‘opéra comique’, Arlequin Roland furieux, is identified as the first comedy to bear that designation, conceived for domestic use. The nature and sale of music for Comédie Française plays are described; Jean-Claude Gillier’s music was highly valued. In ‘Those Who Play Instruments’ arrangements of popular opera are studied in relation to the acquisition of musical skills: copying, arranging, figured bass playing. ‘Domestic Operas’ discusses contrasting works made and published for private performance in mid-century: Hautemer’s Le Troc and Marmontel and La Borde’s Annette et Lubin.

Chapter 10 explains many ways in which Italian music in particular was cultivated at the new Comédie-Italienne from 1716, directed by Luigi Riccoboni. Arias in Italian by Mouret contributed to divertissements of plays. Research into the company’s principal singers introduces an account of Le Joueur, written in-house as a response to Giuseppe Orlandini’s Serpilla e Baiocco at the Opéra in 1729. An edition of Le Joueur specially made for this book is referred to, accessible from its online space. Evidence then shows that different French singers were influenced by performing Italian, or Italianate, music: Pierre Théveneau, Charles Rochard, Joseph Caillot. ‘Il soldato valoroso’ focuses on a descriptive aria by Mouret (1729) presaging comic narratives in the French repertory. ‘Towards La Servante maîtresse’ explains the special nature of the 1746 performances of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, then discusses French acting skills in relation to the requirements of Italian musical comedy. The repertory of Eustachio Bambini’s visiting troupe at the Opéra (1752–54) is discussed in relation to French cultural experience. The early career of Marie-Justine Favart is described, and her singing. French experience of intermezzi is assessed using a 1954 recording of Il maestro de musica, sung and spoken in German.

Chapter 2 continues the introductory process (1) by surveying the large part played by music in seventeenth-century plays; (2) by scrutinising the functions of music in plays; (3) by discussing perceptions of speech and music in dramatic alternation. ‘Recent Research’ introduces John S. Powell’s study of 153 plays with music and isolates key elements for popular opera: the presence of borrowed songs and vaudevilles; their dramatic functions; performative demands, especially when main actors have to sing as well as speak; and manuscripts proving that music occupied far more stage time, relative to spoken material, than appears likely from other written sources. The historical origins of ‘opera’ are problematised by juxtaposing the growth of forms that contained speech. A personal account of hearing songs in contemporary drama provides ideas that are used later in the book. ‘Molière and Music’ describes evolution in this playwright’s musical practice through Le Sicilien and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, culminating in Le Malade imaginaire. Their types of dramatic integration are discussed. ‘After Molière’ is a case-study illustrating important increases in musical diversity: Poisson’s Les Foux divertissans, whose extensive musical score was composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Various parodies of Lully foreshadow opéra-comique, as does the commonplace working milieu.

This chapter examines the dynamics of the notion of peregrinatio in Augustine’s thought, with particular attention given to its use in the Enarrationes in Psalmos. It uses Derrida’s reflections on metaphor to explore the rich regression of images in peregrinatio. Augustine uses the concept, literally denoting the status of a resident alien, to express the affective dynamics of a Christian living away from their home in the heavenly Jerusalem: their sense of misalignment in the world, but also their sense of joy in the very transience of their existence. For no one can be a peregrinus without having a home from which he has traveled, and to which he looks forward to returning. Derrida’s phrase the “destinerrancy of desire” perfectly captures this Augustinian notion.

My third chapter – ‘Performance: The Singer in Action’ – is an extensive consideration of the practice of singing in the streets. Its focus narrows repeatedly upon the act of performance itself: from citywide topography and issues of calendar and clock time; to performance in specific sites; to voice, body, and audience engagement; to the singer’s relationship with the physical ballad sheet in performance. I explore how balladeers overcame numerous challenges – geographic, sonic, social – by means of specific strategies, from the pitch of their voices, to the use of props, to borrowing the psychological weaponry of beggars. The chapter is therefore also in conversation with histories of charity and disability, as well as aspects of human geography. I am especially interested in the creation and maintaining of crowds, the appropriation of public space, the manipulation of codes of moral obligation, and above all in the musical and theatrical aspects of singing: it is central to my argument that we take ballad-singers seriously as being, on some level, artists. This is most evident in my discussion of voice, which – though it borrows heavily from musicology – is unrepentantly historical and leads us inevitably back to issues of class-consciousness.

Examines the development of servicemen’s concert parties in the context of the rapid expansion of the fighting forces, and of the significant figures who were key to the provision of music for the purposes of recreation and amusement. This chapter will show that Britain’s armed forces each had a strong tradition of musical entertainments solely by servicemen for their comrades which was much bolstered by men who had been professional performers before they enlisted. Furthermore, this chapter will show that servicemen used the pantomime form to reinforce their belief that they were fighting in a just war.