Canon and Concert Life: Formation Processes within the Musical Life of Stockholm 1848-1914
The aim of this project is to provide new understanding for the formation processes within concert life and musical repertoires in Stockholm 1848 – 1914. The project presupposes the hypothesis that conceptions of canon are important for the structural transformations of the concert life and that there can be several parallel and changing canon formations. It will show how structures within the concert life and the musical repertoire are formed in relation to canon formation, contemporary aesthetical debate, and ideas of bildung at the same time as commercial powers became more influential. This study will also problematize conceptions of canon formation as well as the relation between centre and periphery in the European musical life of the 19th century.
The base of this project is a comprehensive survey of concerts and musical repertoire in Stockholm 1848-1914, which includes systematic study of concert programs, advertisements, posters, reviews and other archive material. The data will be structured in a database to provide overall descriptive statistics, which together with qualitative analyses of contemporary sources will form the base of the project. The project deals with 3 dichotomies: absolute/program music; bildung/entertainment; nationalism/cosmopolitanism, which also will be the themes of 3 of the 4 publications emanating form the project, the 4th will be a summery of the survey. The project will also arrange a conference and initiate a research network.
Final report
Purpose and Development
The project aimed to contribute new knowledge and new interpretations of the development of concert life and musical repertoire in Stockholm from 1848 to 1914, and to investigate how these processes affected musical life. The goal was to analyse how the structures of the concert life and repertoires were shaped in relation to canon formation, aesthetic debates, educational ideals, and the commercialization of music. The project also aimed to examine how musical life expanded, how repertoires crystallized, and the emerging division between classical and popular music. Also, to investigate the relationship between international and national repertoires and how new repertoire was introduced.
By studying Stockholm in a European context, the project aimed to address broader questions of canon formation and challenge perceptions of musical centres and peripheries. A key part of the study was to highlight the importance of individual actors in these processes.
The overarching aim and research questions of the project remained unchanged, but a greater focus was placed on method development than originally planned in the project application.
Implementation
The project’s starting point was a comprehensive study of concerts and concert repertoires in Stockholm. The data collection proved to be more extensive than initially expected. To capture the full scope of public musical life, beyond just the major music institutions, music advertisements and newspaper reports were used as key sources. Due to the richness of the material the collection was limited to focused studies of one year every decade from 1848 to 1908 and concentrated on two daily newspapers per selected year. Although the sources were digitized, the data collection was done manually, which was time-consuming but produced valuable results. The database was constructed in parallel with the collection, allowing the design to be adapted based on the content of the material.
The database was initially intended as an overview of concerts and repertoires, but the vast amount of information available required a more comprehensive metadata approach, aiming to include as much as possible. This detailed metadata enables ongoing exploration of various questions, enhancing understanding of concert life and repertoire development.
Some archival studies were conducted, but the pandemic hindered progress. Instead, extensive qualitative comparisons and in-depth studies were carried out, particularly through analyses of music criticism, such as concert reviews, music articles, and other written sources discussing concert life and repertoire.
The project's focus shifted, dedicating more time to method development of the collected material. Recent advances in data modelling and management have opened new opportunities for analysis. The dataset's structure enabled various types of network analysis, becoming a key contribution to method development.
Results and Conclusions
The database, now publicly available via the Swedish National Data Service (SND), forms foundation for future research and is an important result. The method development has given rise to new ways of analysing data and creating insights into the structures and processes of change in musical life. In addition to the possibility of making direct searches in the database, such as for specific actors, works, or concert venues, the database also allows for advanced statistical analyses. The project has also contributed to method development within digital humanities. Information visualization, particularly through network graphs, has proven crucial for analysing the structures of musical life. The project, the database, and the visualization methods are presented on the project’s website.
Two of the articles published within the project focus specifically on methodological issues. One article highlights network graphs to visualize the structures of concert life and offers ways to challenge historiography. The second article discuss the method development and highlights innovations in information visualization and their contributions to the research field.
Three articles and chapters addressing different aspects of the project's results are presented as in-depth case studies, highlighting individual actors to illustrate various processes of change. These studies relate to the project’s main areas: absolute/program music, education/entertainment, and nationalism/cosmopolitanism. Alongside the expansion of musical life, the studies also examine how individual actors interacted with and influenced these processes. Actors in this context include both individuals such as musicians or concert organizers and organizations, institutions, or companies. The study shows that activities outside the traditional cultural sphere, played a significant role in the development of both serious and popular music, demonstrating that different types of repertoires could coexist within the same context, meaning that the commercial music scene contributed to the development of art music. The study also shows that some periods, such as the 1880s, which previous research has described as a period of decline, in fact show significantly more activity and play a more important role in the processes of change. The conclusion is that an interpretation of the expansion of musical life should be seen as a flow that occurs in waves, with more or less intense periods of change over a longer time. It is important to recognize the significance of the long-term trends and view the development of musical life from a broader perspective to enable alternative interpretations and a new understanding of the period.
The project also highlights the large number of musicians and singers active in concert life, which has contributed to a deeper understanding of the composition of musical life. Comparisons over time show, for example, a gradually more equal gender distribution among musicians mentioned by name in concert advertisements, reflecting women’s increasingly prominent place in public musical life. This provides a richer perspective on previous historiography and challenges previous ideas about the structure and dynamics of public musical life.
The amount of information that can be extracted from the database and the various types of analyses enabled by the methods developed in the project will continue to generate results even after the project is completed, allowing for new perspectives on concert life and its structures. This resource will be able to explore a wide range of questions, making the database a platform for continuous knowledge development in the field.
New Research Questions
The project has already generated new research questions and highlights several areas of interest for future studies. One example is the role of female musicians in public concert life. The project shows that many key female figures have remained entirely invisible in previous research.
The project also demonstrated that public chamber music concerts were significantly more common than previous research has suggested and that they played an important role in spreading aesthetic ideals and promoting musical collaborations. This is an area of interest for further research.
Issues concerning musical centres and peripheries have also been highlighted in the project, leading to new research questions and a desire to problematize the traditional focus on capital cities and large towns as musical centres. Instead, the project points to the need to explore the diversity of local and regional contexts that exist.
The digital methods developed in the project are highly relevant for future studies and can be widely applied to other materials. For example, using the structure of the database to collect similar material from other contexts would enable comparative studies. Additionally, the visualization methods can also be transferred to other types of material.
Dissemination of Research Results and Collaboration
To date, the project has resulted in two articles in scientific journals and two chapters in anthologies. The articles are or will be made available open access. In addition to these, two more articles are in production and will be submitted to scientific journals within six months.
When it became clear that the database itself was an important result and that both the dataset and the method development would be of great interest to other researchers, various possibilities for publication and dissemination were explored. A collaboration with the Centre for Digital Humanities at Uppsala University was initiated through a pilot study aimed at exploring the possibilities of transferring the database to an online platform. However, the functionality was limited, and the dataset was eventually published via SND. The project has also created a website where the project is presented along with several statistical analyses and network graphs.
The original plan was to organize an international conference on the theme "Canon and Concert Life in the Nordic Countries," but the pandemic prevented this. Instead, the idea was reformulated with a national focus on the theme "Regional Musical Life," which began with an online symposium and the start of a research network at the end of 2020, followed by a conference in November 2021. The conference was organized in collaboration between Uppsala University, Västernorrlands Museum, and the Härnösand Music Society and took place at Västernorrlands Museum. The conference resulted in an anthology with 13 chapters, where Anne Reese Willén is one of three editors and contributed with a chapter. The work on the anthology is in its final stages and will be published in Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis in winter 2024/25.
The pandemic significantly delayed conference participation, but with the extension of the project period, it was successfully presented at three international and eight national conferences.
The project aimed to contribute new knowledge and new interpretations of the development of concert life and musical repertoire in Stockholm from 1848 to 1914, and to investigate how these processes affected musical life. The goal was to analyse how the structures of the concert life and repertoires were shaped in relation to canon formation, aesthetic debates, educational ideals, and the commercialization of music. The project also aimed to examine how musical life expanded, how repertoires crystallized, and the emerging division between classical and popular music. Also, to investigate the relationship between international and national repertoires and how new repertoire was introduced.
By studying Stockholm in a European context, the project aimed to address broader questions of canon formation and challenge perceptions of musical centres and peripheries. A key part of the study was to highlight the importance of individual actors in these processes.
The overarching aim and research questions of the project remained unchanged, but a greater focus was placed on method development than originally planned in the project application.
Implementation
The project’s starting point was a comprehensive study of concerts and concert repertoires in Stockholm. The data collection proved to be more extensive than initially expected. To capture the full scope of public musical life, beyond just the major music institutions, music advertisements and newspaper reports were used as key sources. Due to the richness of the material the collection was limited to focused studies of one year every decade from 1848 to 1908 and concentrated on two daily newspapers per selected year. Although the sources were digitized, the data collection was done manually, which was time-consuming but produced valuable results. The database was constructed in parallel with the collection, allowing the design to be adapted based on the content of the material.
The database was initially intended as an overview of concerts and repertoires, but the vast amount of information available required a more comprehensive metadata approach, aiming to include as much as possible. This detailed metadata enables ongoing exploration of various questions, enhancing understanding of concert life and repertoire development.
Some archival studies were conducted, but the pandemic hindered progress. Instead, extensive qualitative comparisons and in-depth studies were carried out, particularly through analyses of music criticism, such as concert reviews, music articles, and other written sources discussing concert life and repertoire.
The project's focus shifted, dedicating more time to method development of the collected material. Recent advances in data modelling and management have opened new opportunities for analysis. The dataset's structure enabled various types of network analysis, becoming a key contribution to method development.
Results and Conclusions
The database, now publicly available via the Swedish National Data Service (SND), forms foundation for future research and is an important result. The method development has given rise to new ways of analysing data and creating insights into the structures and processes of change in musical life. In addition to the possibility of making direct searches in the database, such as for specific actors, works, or concert venues, the database also allows for advanced statistical analyses. The project has also contributed to method development within digital humanities. Information visualization, particularly through network graphs, has proven crucial for analysing the structures of musical life. The project, the database, and the visualization methods are presented on the project’s website.
Two of the articles published within the project focus specifically on methodological issues. One article highlights network graphs to visualize the structures of concert life and offers ways to challenge historiography. The second article discuss the method development and highlights innovations in information visualization and their contributions to the research field.
Three articles and chapters addressing different aspects of the project's results are presented as in-depth case studies, highlighting individual actors to illustrate various processes of change. These studies relate to the project’s main areas: absolute/program music, education/entertainment, and nationalism/cosmopolitanism. Alongside the expansion of musical life, the studies also examine how individual actors interacted with and influenced these processes. Actors in this context include both individuals such as musicians or concert organizers and organizations, institutions, or companies. The study shows that activities outside the traditional cultural sphere, played a significant role in the development of both serious and popular music, demonstrating that different types of repertoires could coexist within the same context, meaning that the commercial music scene contributed to the development of art music. The study also shows that some periods, such as the 1880s, which previous research has described as a period of decline, in fact show significantly more activity and play a more important role in the processes of change. The conclusion is that an interpretation of the expansion of musical life should be seen as a flow that occurs in waves, with more or less intense periods of change over a longer time. It is important to recognize the significance of the long-term trends and view the development of musical life from a broader perspective to enable alternative interpretations and a new understanding of the period.
The project also highlights the large number of musicians and singers active in concert life, which has contributed to a deeper understanding of the composition of musical life. Comparisons over time show, for example, a gradually more equal gender distribution among musicians mentioned by name in concert advertisements, reflecting women’s increasingly prominent place in public musical life. This provides a richer perspective on previous historiography and challenges previous ideas about the structure and dynamics of public musical life.
The amount of information that can be extracted from the database and the various types of analyses enabled by the methods developed in the project will continue to generate results even after the project is completed, allowing for new perspectives on concert life and its structures. This resource will be able to explore a wide range of questions, making the database a platform for continuous knowledge development in the field.
New Research Questions
The project has already generated new research questions and highlights several areas of interest for future studies. One example is the role of female musicians in public concert life. The project shows that many key female figures have remained entirely invisible in previous research.
The project also demonstrated that public chamber music concerts were significantly more common than previous research has suggested and that they played an important role in spreading aesthetic ideals and promoting musical collaborations. This is an area of interest for further research.
Issues concerning musical centres and peripheries have also been highlighted in the project, leading to new research questions and a desire to problematize the traditional focus on capital cities and large towns as musical centres. Instead, the project points to the need to explore the diversity of local and regional contexts that exist.
The digital methods developed in the project are highly relevant for future studies and can be widely applied to other materials. For example, using the structure of the database to collect similar material from other contexts would enable comparative studies. Additionally, the visualization methods can also be transferred to other types of material.
Dissemination of Research Results and Collaboration
To date, the project has resulted in two articles in scientific journals and two chapters in anthologies. The articles are or will be made available open access. In addition to these, two more articles are in production and will be submitted to scientific journals within six months.
When it became clear that the database itself was an important result and that both the dataset and the method development would be of great interest to other researchers, various possibilities for publication and dissemination were explored. A collaboration with the Centre for Digital Humanities at Uppsala University was initiated through a pilot study aimed at exploring the possibilities of transferring the database to an online platform. However, the functionality was limited, and the dataset was eventually published via SND. The project has also created a website where the project is presented along with several statistical analyses and network graphs.
The original plan was to organize an international conference on the theme "Canon and Concert Life in the Nordic Countries," but the pandemic prevented this. Instead, the idea was reformulated with a national focus on the theme "Regional Musical Life," which began with an online symposium and the start of a research network at the end of 2020, followed by a conference in November 2021. The conference was organized in collaboration between Uppsala University, Västernorrlands Museum, and the Härnösand Music Society and took place at Västernorrlands Museum. The conference resulted in an anthology with 13 chapters, where Anne Reese Willén is one of three editors and contributed with a chapter. The work on the anthology is in its final stages and will be published in Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis in winter 2024/25.
The pandemic significantly delayed conference participation, but with the extension of the project period, it was successfully presented at three international and eight national conferences.