Roy Johnston and Declan Plummer provide a refreshing portrait of Belfast in the nineteenth century. Before his death Roy Johnston, had written a full draft, based on an impressive array of contemporary sources, with deep and detailed attention especially to contemporary newspapers. With the deft and sensitive contribution of Declan Plummer the finished book offers a telling view of Belfast‘s thriving musical life. Largely without the participation and example of local aristocracy, nobility and gentry, Belfast‘s musical society was formed largely by the townspeople themselves in the eighteenth century and by several instrumental and choral societies in the nineteenth century. As the town grew in size and developed an industrial character, its townspeople identified increasingly with the large industrial towns and cities of the British mainland. Efforts to place themselves on the principal touring circuit of the great nineteenth-century concert artists led them to build a concert hall not in emulation of Dublin but of the British industrial towns. Belfast audiences had experienced English opera in the eighteenth century, and in due course in the nineteenth century they found themselves receiving the touring opera companies, in theatres newly built to accommodate them. Through an energetic groundwork revision of contemporary sources, Johnston and Plummer reveal a picture of sustained vitality and development that justifies Belfast‘s prominent place the history of nineteenth-century musical culture in Ireland and more broadly in the British Isles.

Roy Johnston and Declan Plummer provide a refreshing portrait of Belfast in the nineteenth century. Before his death Roy Johnston, had written a full draft, based on an impressive array of contemporary sources, with deep and detailed attention especially to contemporary newspapers. With the deft and sensitive contribution of Declan Plummer the finished book offers a telling view of Belfast?s thriving musical life. Largely without the participation and example of local aristocracy, nobility and gentry, Belfast?s musical society was formed largely by the townspeople themselves in the eighteenth century and by several instrumental and choral societies in the nineteenth century. As the town grew in size and developed an industrial character, its townspeople identified increasingly with the large industrial towns and cities of the British mainland. Efforts to place themselves on the principal touring circuit of the great nineteenth-century concert artists led them to build a concert hall not in emulation of Dublin but of the British industrial towns. Belfast audiences had experienced English opera in the eighteenth century, and in due course in the nineteenth century they found themselves receiving the touring opera companies, in theatres newly built to accommodate them. Through an energetic groundwork revision of contemporary sources, Johnston and Plummer reveal a picture of sustained vitality and development that justifies Belfast?s prominent place the history of nineteenth-century musical culture in Ireland and more broadly in the British Isles.

This book, the 9th volume in the Irish Musical Studies Series, collects 15 essays on various aspects of musical life in Ireland in the 19th century, including sacred and secular musical life in various centres; collections of Irish traditional music, the reception of Irish traditional music in literature, painting and Victorian society; music education; issues concerning opera; the nature of the musical press; the use of music for social altruism; the music of R.P. Stewart; the dialogue between Germany and Ireland; the Czechs and Irish music. Contributors: Paul Rodmell (U. Birmingham), Anne Dempsey (ind.), Roy Johnston (ind.), Paul Collins (Mary I.), Marie McCarthy (U. Maryland), Maria McHale (ind.), Jimmy O'Brien Moran (U. Limerick), Barra Boydell (NUIM), David Cooper (U. Leeds), Ita Beausang (ind.), Michael Murphy (Mary I.), Lisa Parker (Mary I.), Harry White (UCD), Joachim Fischer (U. Limerick), Jan Smaczny (QUB), Axel Klein (ind.). (Series: Irish Musical Studies)

The publication of The London Pianoforte School (ed. Nicholas Temperley) twenty years ago, launched a proliferation of research on music for the piano during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also expanded research into the developments of musical life in London--for a time the centre of piano manufacturing, publishing and performance. However, nothing has focused on the piano exclusively within Britain. The eleven chapters in this volume explore major issues surrounding the instrument, its performers and music within an expanded geographical context created by the spread of the instrument and the growth of concert touring.