This book brings together a significant part of Derek B. Scott’s diverse academic work, showing that the cultural history of music matters not only for the understanding it can bring to the meaning and purpose of music-making, but also because it can play a role in the development of social justice and a democratic culture. Where music history is concerned, Scott argues that we should offer interpretations that question the extent to which critics and historians have prized ethnicity and n...

The songbooks of the 1830-40s were printed in tiny numbers, and small format so they could be hidden in a pocket, passed round or thrown away.Collectors have sought ‘these priceless chapbooks’, but only recently a collection of 49 songbooks has come to light. This collection represents almost all of the known songbooks from the period.

The phrase "popular music revolution" may instantly bring to mind such twentieth-century musical movements as jazz and rock 'n' roll. In Sounds of the Metropolis, however, Derek Scott argues that the first popular music revolution actually occurred in the nineteenth century, illustrating how a distinct group of popular styles first began to assert their independence and values. He explains the popular music revolution as driven by social changes and the incorporation of music into...

From the Erotic to the Demonic demonstrates how different musical styles construct ideas of class, sexuality, and ethnic identity. This book will serve as a model for musicologists who want to take a postmodern approach to their inquiries. The clear and lively arguments are supported by ninety musical examples taken from such diverse sources as opera, symphonic music, jazz, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century popular songs. Derek Scott offers new insights on a range of "high" an...

Academic attention has focused on America's influence on European stage works, and yet dozens of operettas from Austria and Germany were produced on Broadway and in the West End, and their impact on the musical life of the early twentieth century is undeniable. In this ground breaking book, Derek B. Scott examines the cultural transfer of operetta from the German stage to Britain and the USA and offers a historical and critical survey of these operettas and their music. In the period 1900–...

The songbooks of the 1830-40s were printed in tiny numbers, and small format so they could be hidden in a pocket, passed round or thrown away.Collectors have sought ‘these priceless chapbooks’, but only recently a collection of 49 songbooks has come to light. This collection represents almost all of the known songbooks from the period.

The songbooks of the 1830-40s were printed in tiny numbers, and small format so they could be hidden in a pocket, passed round or thrown away.Collectors have sought ‘these priceless chapbooks’, but only recently a collection of 49 songbooks has come to light. This collection represents almost all of the known songbooks from the period.

The songbooks of the 1830-40s were printed in tiny numbers, and small format so they could be hidden in a pocket, passed round or thrown away.Collectors have sought ‘these priceless chapbooks’, but only recently a collection of 49 songbooks has come to light. This collection represents almost all of the known songbooks from the period.

This book is a cultural history of the nineteenth-century songster: pocket-sized anthologies of song texts, usually without musical notation. It examines the musical, social, commercial and aesthetic functions songsters served and the processes by which they were produced and disseminated, the repertory they included, and the singers, printers and entrepreneurs that both inspired their manufacture and facilitated their consumption. Taking an international perspective, chapters focus on son...

Those whose thoughts of musical theatre are dominated by the Broadway musical will find this book a revelation. From the 1850s to the early 1930s, when urban theatres sought to mount glamorous musical entertainment, it was to operetta that they turned. It was a form of musical theatre that crossed national borders with ease and was adored by audiences around the world. This collection of essays by an array of international scholars examines the key figures in operetta in many different cou...

This collection of essays is the first book-length study of music history and cosmopolitanism, and is informed by arguments that culture and identity do not have to be viewed as primarily located in the context of nationalist narratives. Rather than trying to distinguish between a true cosmopolitanism and a false cosmopolitanism, the book presents studies that deepen understanding of the heritage of this concept – the various ways in which the term has been used to describe a wide range of...

First published in 1989, The Singing Bourgeois challenges the myth that the 'Victorian parlour song' was a clear-cut genre. Derek Scott reveals the huge diversity of musical forms and styles that influenced the songs performed in middle class homes during the nineteenth century, from the assimilation of Celtic and Afro-American culture by songwriters, to the emergence of forms of sacred song performed in the home. The popularity of these domestic songs opened up opportunities to women comp...