Recreation through Music: Clubs, Amateurs, and Professionals in late 19th Century Mandolin Culture

Publication type:
Chapter
Metadata:
Abstract
By the last decade of the 19th century recreation through music became affordable for an increasingly large middle class in the United States. This phenomenon may seem to be well researched on the first glance, for example considering the cultural practice of choir singing or of classical concert series. However, it also led to music cultures that have been almost forgotten by music history. Since the early 1880s, a noticeably large community had developed around the mandolin from the urban areas of the US-American east coast to the mid-west. After the vibe of Paris Carnival in 1878, a Spanish artistic group referred to as Estudiantina Española Figaro by the American press received just as big a success in the US, generating a series of imitators, generically called Spanish Students. These imitators determined an American fascination for the mandolin that would soon materialize in different contexts of playing the instrument, and in the development of a specialized (popular) music market. In ‘British-American’ culture the fashionable instrument was soon added to existing banjo and guitar orchestras, while at the same time small mandolin chamber ensembles were formed, and soloists showed their abilities, promoting the new sound. This led to a growing demand in instruments, music, events, magazines, and professionals—e. g. virtuosos, teachers, orchestra leaders, composers, instrument makers, and publishing companies. So far, only traces of this rich music culture have been researched. Through documenting and analyzing mainly one particular source— banjo manufacturer and music publisher Samuel Swaim Stewart’s S. S. Stewart’s Banjo, Guitar and Mandolin Journal—this paper focuses on hidden elements of American mandolin culture around 1900, like the Banjo, Mandolin, and Guitar Festival held in Philadelphia in 1899. A deeper insight into this culture’s market will help understand the role music making played for the “cultivated aspirations [of an affluent middle class; added by the author] which could be persued with a newly-won leisure time” (Hambly 1977, 28).
Addresses
  • Stefanie Acquavella-Rauch
Autoren
  • Stefanie Acquavella-Rauch
Editoren
Funding Acknowledgements
  • Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst: 57563885
Schlüsselwörter
  • Mandolin
  • Mandoline
  • Recreation
  • Freizeit
  • Club
  • Verein
Number of chapters in book
10
Buchtitel
Transatlantic Perspectives on Hidden Late 19th Century Music Cultures
Ort der Veröffentlichung
Berlin etc.
Datum der Veröffentlichung
2022
Status
Accepted
Herausgeber
Peter Lang GmbH
Herausgeber URL
https://www.peterlang.com/series/6243
Datum der Datenerfassung
2022
Series
Methodology of Music Research
Titel
Recreation through Music: Clubs, Amateurs, and Professionals in late 19th Century Mandolin Culture
Ausgabe der Zeitschrift
13

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