French Music in Britain 1830–1914 investigates the presence, reception and influence of French art music in Britain between 1830 (roughly the arrival of ‘grand opera’ and opéra comique in London) and the outbreak of the First World War. Five chronologically ordered chapters investigate key questions such as:
* Where and to whom was French music performed in Britain in the nineteenth century?
* How was this music received, especially by journal and newspaper critics and other arbiters of taste?
* What characteristics and qualities did British audiences associate with French music?
* Was the presence and reception of French music in any way influenced by Franco-British political relations, or other aspects of cultural transfer and exchange?
* Were British composers influenced by their French contemporaries to any extent and, if so, in what ways?
Placed within the wider social and cultural context of Britain’s most ambiguous and beguiling international relationship, this volume demonstrates how French music became an increasingly significant part of the British musician’s repertory and influenced many composers. This is an important resource for musicologists specialising in Nineteenth-Century Music, Music History and European Music. It is also relevant for scholars and researchers of French Studies and Cultural Studies.
