Beyond concert halls. Classical music for wider audiences in Berlin around 1900

• Applicant: Wiebke Sophie Elisabeth Rademacher
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2021 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 471282516

Classical music is inextricably interwoven with the history of the bourgeoisie – recent research suggests. However, the fact that it was also very present beyond the bourgeois sphere towards the end of the 19th century has so far remained almost unnoticed. Yet the role of art music in the working-class milieu around 1900 was not as marginal as previously assumed. On the contrary, classical music was an integral part of the leisure and educational activities of the working class movement. In addition, bourgeois philanthropes regularly organised inexpensive concerts and lecture evenings for the lower classes. This project investigates this phenomenon using Berlin as an example and thus adds a crucial piece of the puzzle to the picture of concert life around 1900. If one understands culture with Bourdieu as a resource that is used in struggles for distinction, these formats are about much more than just purpose-free performances of musical works. They are much rather about political, social and cultural negotiation processes of different social groups in a very dynamic time.This book approaches the topic from two directions: First, the motivations, reservations and conflicts associated with making art music accessible to broad parts of the population are examined at the level of discourse. Consequently, a picture as comprehensive as possible of actual concert life is drawn. Only those formats are examined in which art music (as it was understood at the time) was played, and which at the same time were affordable for workers, compatible with everyday factory life and were aimed decidedly at broad sections of the population. The study is divided into two parts. First, initiatives are examined that were organised by citizens for workers and that were – implicitly or explicitly – understood as top-down educational measures. The second part, on the other hand, deals with initiatives from the broader environment of the workers’ movement, such as workers’ choirs, popular theatres or trade unions. Instead of a conclusion, concert formats in the public sphere are examined.This study is interdisciplinary at its core and is located at the intersections of history and musicology, cultural studies and the sociology of music. It combines perspectives of the history of everyday life and the history of emotions, provides new insights for the field of performance studies, complements extensive research on labour history and contributes to the history of listening. In addition, it includes source material (partly from private archives) that has hardly been examined to date. In the musicological realm, the study also attempts to contribute to a-critical understanding of the phenomenon of art music.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants