Volume 52, Number 17 · November 3, 2005
Playing Music: The Lost Freedom
By Charles Rosen
Performing Music in the Age of Recording
by Robert Philip
Yale University Press, 293 pp., $35.00
Before 1900 in Europe and America, it was at home that music was most often experienced, by family members who played some instrument or sang, and by, willingly or unwillingly, the rest of the family and friends. (In Western society among the lower middle class and upward, most music was made by women, who were generally expected to learn to cook, sew, and play the piano. The majority of professional musicians may have been male, like the majority of professional cooks, but most of the cooking and piano playing was the lot of women. Music, like breakfast and dinner, was part of life at home.) More exceptionally, music could be heard in some public places—concert hall, opera house, or church. The public realm was essentially a complement to the private. It set standards and added glamour.
Review, 5062 words
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