The Work of Music

Labor and Creativity in Germany's Long Nineteenth Century

Celia Applegate

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

University of Wisconsin Press
07 October 2025

Music; Music reviews & criticism; European history; History: specific events & topics; Industrial arbitration & negotiation

Series: George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas

In The Work of Music, Celia Applegate examines the cultural history of Austro-German music through the lens of labor from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the Third Reich. She explores the working world of music and musicians, the various jobs they performed, the work music did in society, the observations and commentaries of contemporaries on the shape and function of musical life, and the work of organizing music making, both amateur and professional. At a time when ideas of absolute music and music-as-leisure were both on the rise, writing about music tended to obscure these practical matters. Here, Applegate reflects on how an intensely musical society organized and understood the ubiquitous activity that underpinned it.

By: Celia Applegate
Imprint: University of Wisconsin Press
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780299353308
ISBN 10: 0299353303
Series: George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
Pages: 136
Publication Date: 07 October 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction 1 Defining the Work of Music 2. Music as Profession 3. Music at Work Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

Celia Applegate is William R. Kenan Jr. Chair of History and a professor of German studies at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat, The Necessity of Music: Variations on a German Theme, and Bach in Berlin: Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn’s Revival of the “St. Matthew Passion” as well as a coeditor (with Pamela Potter) of Music and German National Identity.

Reviews for The Work of Music: Labor and Creativity in Germany's Long Nineteenth Century

""Applegate is one of the world's leading authorities on the social and cultural history of German music in the modern era, and that shows through clearly in this concise, engaging, and readable volume.""--David Gramit, University of Alberta