Sense and Senses of the Imagination: Music Listening in England, c. 1660-1750
Final Report Abstract
Music of all kinds in theatres, public houses and coffee houses, ballrooms, pleasure gardens, and various other premises – the musical culture of England, and London in particular, between the Restoration in 1660 and the mid-18th century was exceptionally diverse by European standards. In less than a hundred years, various new forms of public musical entertainment, accessible for an admission fee, developed, which gradually developed a cultural centre apart from the court. A new ‘public’ for music emerged. This public is characterised in particular by the increasing media visibility of a growing number of individuals who became relevant to the negotiation of opinions regarding the diverse musical offerings. At the same time, public musical entertainments brought with them entirely new contexts for music listening. The period between the Restoration and the mid-18th century thus was a period of transformation for the music listening of those musically nonprofessional individuals who made use of some or all of these new entertainments, a time in which different audience groups were newly constituted. The project delineates, for the first time, a comprehensive, culturally and historically specific panorama of music listening by musically non-professional listeners in the public cultural life of England during this period. It is based on educational, musical, and general arts-related media/sources, as well as a multitude of previously unpublished personal testimonies (chiefly letters and diaries). The analysis of the interactions between (1) professional musical performances, (2) receptive reflections ranging from sensuality to the symbolic power of audible music, and (3) the cultivation of non-professional music-making reveals significant differences depending on whether music listening was described primarily from the perspective of one’s own physically active music-making or from a physically distanced standpoint. I have examined the different ways of speaking and writing about music listening in relation to societal change and its effects on educational structures and content, as well as on available forms of music consumption. Overall, a cultural understanding of music listening developed in England between the Restoration and the mid-18th century which increasingly assigned listeners without professional musical training a place entirely separate from the actual production of music. The corresponding transformation in the practice of music listening was decisively shaped by the (adaptable) intellectual concept of the ‘imagination’ which proved to be pivotal on many levels (and in very different manifestations) for representing processes of sensory, rational, and associative art perception.
Publications
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„Diverse Music Listening Modes: Exploring the Historical Interplay between Social Structures, Repertoire, and Cultural Organization of the Senses“, in: Musicologia Austriaca
Knoth, Ina
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Just for the Ladies? Compilation, Knowledge Practice and Pasticcio in England around 1720. Musicology Today, 18(1), 11-19.
Knoth, Ina
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Körpervorstellung und Musikwahrnehmung englischer Virtuosi um 1700. Music in the Body –The Body in Music. Georg Olms Verlag.
Knoth, Ina
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Vormoderne Musik hören. Aufführungsbezogene Songdrucke, Vorstellungskraft und ästhetische Reflexionsfiguren. Materialität und Medialität, 213-232. De Gruyter.
Knoth, Ina
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„Handel’s many faces in the noble world of George Bickham’s Musical Entertainer“, Thirteenth Handel Institute Conference, 17.–19. November 2023, London
Knoth, Ina
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„Sociability and the Senses in Restoration ‚Musick Rooms‘“, Conviviality and Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century: Restoration to Romanticism, 3.–5. März 2023, Universität Duisburg-Essen
Knoth, Ina
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„Zeitliche Aspekte von Farbe-Ton-Analogien in der englischen Frühaufklärung“, in: Die Tonkunst 17/2 (2023), S. 176–186
Knoth, Ina
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George Bickhams Musical Entertainer als kulturpolitisches Forum. Händel-Jahrbuch, 215-237. Bärenreiter-Verlag.
Knoth, Ina
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Griechische Antike und englischer Sensualismus: Zur unmittelbaren Wirkung von Musik am Beispiel von Händels Alexander’s Feast. Göttinger Händel-Beiträge, Band 25, 39-54. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Knoth, Ina
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„Historisches Musikhören aus praxeologischer Perspektive: ein Methodenangebot“, Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, 11.–14. September 2024, Universität zu Köln und Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln
Knoth, Ina
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Sinne und Sinn der Vorstellungskraft. V&R unipress.
Knoth, Ina
