concert

concert, social institution for the public performance of music outside of a religious or dramatic context. Concerts developed in their present form from the informal music-making of the 17th century. The social influences affecting the development of the concert also affected the music conceived for it, and the evolution in music from Mozart to Beethoven has a counterpart in the patronage of the concert. Similarly, cosmopolitan aspects of music in the early 21st century are associated with the increasingly international outlook of concert audiences.

Early forms of the concert were associated with university activities. In the 17th and 18th centuries many German universities maintained a Collegium Musicum for the performance of chamber music, and "music meetings" were regularly held at Oxford and Cambridge. Gatherings of amateurs to hear music had been a feature of the Italian academies of the Renaissance, notably those at Bologna and Milan founded in the 15th century. Like the French academies that succeeded them, they fostered music as one of the humanities and anticipated in this respect the function of 18th-century concert patrons. The more important Italian and French academies were, however, principally concerned with exploring the borderlands of music and poetry, and these opened a way to the opera rather than to the concert.

The first known public concerts for which admission was charged were given in London by the violinist John Banister at his home in Whitefriars in 1672. In 1678 Thomas Britton, a charcoal seller, established weekly concerts in a loft in Clerkenwell at the subscription rate of 10 shillings a year. Handel and Pepusch were among the performers at these humble but historic concerts which were the forerunners of several other London series, particularly in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden.

Concerts of instrumental and vocal music were frequently given at the homes of the nobility in France in the 17th century. The first public concerts in France were the Concerts Spirituels, organized by the composer Anne Danican Philidor on days of religious festivals when the Opéra was closed. These flourished in Paris from 1725 to 1791. Closely associated with the development of the symphony and bringing the 18th-century repertory to a wide public, the Concert Spirituel served as a model for similar concert societies in other countries.

In the second half of the 18th century the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart were introduced in England at professional concerts, and Haydn wrote a famous set of 12 symphonies for performance in London at the Salomon concerts. Earlier, concerts reflecting the social elegance of 18th-century London were given in elaborate settings at the gardens of Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and Marylebone. An English equivalent of a fête galante was suggested by the masquerades and Handelian opera singers at these pleasure gardens where the programs ranged from works by the seven-year-old Mozart to popular songs of the day. Something of the spirit of the London garden concerts was revived at the end of the 19th century at the Crystal Palace concerts in London. Among the numerous 18th-century concert societies in Germany and Austria the Gewandhaus concerts at Leipzig, dating from 1781, and the Tonkünstlersocietät (Musicians’ Society), founded in 1771 in Vienna, were later to be associated with the great figures of Romantic music. The court concerts given by the orchestra of the elector Palatine between 1745 and 1778 at Mannheim, described by Charles Burney as "an orchestra of generals," reached the highest standard of orchestral playing in Europe at that time.

A change came at the beginning of the 19th century when concerts attracted audiences drawn from a wider social range. New concert societies were formed to meet the demands of a growing democratic spirit. Many societies that were formed when the symphonies of Beethoven and the romantic works of Berlioz were first heard exist to the present day, notably the Philharmonic Society (later, Royal Philharmonic Society) in London, the Concerts du Conservatoire in Paris, and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Until that point, concert giving had been mainly confined to England, France, Germany, and Italy. With the growth of nationalism, concert societies were formed for the promotion of national music in many European countries, notably the Russian Musical Society founded in 1859. In the United States, concerts had been given in the 18th century at New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and also at Charleston, South Carolina, where a St. Cecilia society was founded in 1762 and where, five years later, concerts were inaugurated under the title "New Vauxhall," on the model of the London garden concerts. The main U.S. contribution to concert activity came with the foundation in the 19th century of symphony orchestras in several cities. Prosperity attracted European artists and enabled high standards to be reached by U.S. musicians. From the early 20th century, concert activity in the larger U.S. cities attained at least the level of that in European centres.

In the 20th century, particularly after World War II, concert activity was greatly stimulated by the radio and the phonograph. Larger concert halls were built, and orchestral and chamber music concerts became one of the main attractions at music festivals. Concert societies were established in countries of the British Commonwealth and South America. Others sprang up in India and Japan. The worldwide popularization of music concert repertories were, however, marked by a new trend. Well established works of the classical and Romantic periods were generally more favoured than contemporary works. On the other hand, standards of execution at concerts, particularly of instrumental works, were noticeably higher. Orchestras, as well as soloists, traveled freely from one country to another, and concerts even in provincial towns, sometimes the scene of a music festival, reached a standard which must have been unknown in the main centres of concert activity in the 19th century.

The explosive growth of popular music in the 20th century saw the concert evolve once more. Television played a major role in expanding the global reach of rock music, and outdoor rock festivals were attended by tens of thousands of concertgoers. The most popular musicians embarked on international tours, playing before crowds in large concert venues around the world. As the Internet reshaped the music industry in the 21st century, the revenue generated by live performances became increasingly important for professional musicians.