University of Rochester Press Dedicating Music, 1785-1850: 155 (Eastman Studies in Music)

The use of title page dedications in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century marketplace for printed music reflects a changing financial and aesthetic landscape in which patronage was waning and independent artistry surging. Borrowing from the methods of book history and sociological theory, Dedicating Music, 1785-1850 is a study of musical print culture. Emily Green argues that title-page dedications designated written music as a noncommodifiable gift while presenting composers with opportunities for self-promotion. They also contributed to a new kind of branding by communicating composers' friendships and artistic allegiances. Dedicating Music considers dedications issued in print between 1785 and 1850 in sets of overlapping corpuses: offerings to peers (as in Mozart's string quartets dedicated to Haydn); to patrons (as in Ignaz Pleyel's string quartets for Count Erdödy); to friends (as in Chopin's offering of Mazurkas for poet Stefan Witwicki); and dedications issued by publishers (as in Beethoven's song In questa tomba oscura included in publisher Tranquillo Mollo's collection offered to Prince Lobkowitz). The result is a synchronic study that highlights the importance of printed packaging, rather than notes on the page, to the complex relationship between composers, publishers, and consumers of music. Review Dedicating Music, 1785-1850 is the first full-length study to demonstrate-persuasively and in depth-that the practice of dedicating music was part of the complex and largely overlooked economy of the gift during the transition to nineteenth-century industrial capitalism. Looking not only at dedications and dedicatees, but also at related practices like advertising and layout, Green heightens our awareness of the significance of texts beyond the notes in the phenomenon of printed music, and indeed persuades us of the need to pay closer attention to the material practices that surround music-making. Highly recommended. --David Gramit, University of Alberta About the Author EMILY H. GREEN is Assistant Professor of Music at George Mason University.