The history of the idea of "repertoire"

[MrGongGong]

A quick question
This is for some research I'm doing for an education project which isn't about musicology but I wanted a bit more understanding.

I was talking with a friend who is a musicologist about the idea of "repertoire" and when (in "Western Art Music", for want of a better label!) it became the dominant concept. He was talking about how no-one played Bach much until his music was "rediscovered" by Mendelssohn.

So what do you folks think?

What I'm interested in is how the idea of music having a set of pieces that are considered to be a "repertoire" came about and when this was.
When was most music "new music" (writing a Cantata every week being an obvious example) and was this "new music" regarded as somehow fundamentally different from the music that was already in existence.

I'm more familiar with this in relation to other musics (the Honkyoku repertoire of Shakuhachi pieces etc) but not clear enough about this in relation to Western Musics.

[french frank]

I read a very good paper about how the 'canon' developed - over the centuries. I'll need to dig around on the web to find it again as I threw the dog-eared hard copy away and I don't remember the details. I'm sure there are experts here to deliver what you want

[french frank]

Quick thought: did it start with Sonnleithner's Gesellschaft in Vienna in 1812? The society set out to sponsor concerts and collect an archive of documents. The repertoire would have been set at that point by what was then currently being played (consequently no Bach). It would mainly have been the living composers or only recently dead - hence Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven &c.

[doversoul1]

I though the term repertoire meant type or subset, e.g., sacred or secular, Baroque, Classical or Romantic etc.. But this is not what you mean, is it? Also we often hear a commentator say ‘this is a wonderful work. It’s surprising that this isn’t in the repertoire’, which is near to the idea of the cannon though I don’t think it is quite the same.

Is this something like the latter that you are thinking of or do you actually mean the ‘cannon’?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's too early - but just a quick point: IIRC, Bach's was regularly played long before Mendelssohn - the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Organ Books were staples for teaching keyboard instruments. In other words, the stuff Bach had had published was still "around" before the revival of the Choral Music. Publication of Music plays an important role in the establishment of Repertoire.

And the growth of The Concert - a larger group of wealthy people eager to hear Music, and to be seen going to cultural events - as opposed to the rich individual employing Musicians to write and perform Music for himself and a few pals.

I'll try again when I've had coffee.

[MrGongGong]

I though the term repertoire meant type or subset, e.g., sacred or secular, Baroque, Classical or Romantic etc.. But this is not what you mean, is it? Also we often hear a commentator say ‘this is a wonderful work. It’s surprising that this isn’t in the repertoire’, which is near to the idea of the cannon though I don’t think it is quite the same.

Is this something like the latter that you are thinking of or do you actually mean the ‘cannon’?

What I mean (and it probably overlaps between 'canon' and 'repertoire') is the idea that music has a set of works that are the considered what is 'normally' performed in concerts (mainly thinking about non-religious contexts at the moment).

Is that a bit clearer?

[doversoul1]

I think this is an opinion based book rather than impartial research but Bruce Haynes writes quite a lot about cannon and cannonism in The End of Early Music (2007, OUP). Like this:

A Cannon of Classical works [in music] began to be built up, with Beethoven’s symphonies as its base. This way of thinking called 'Cannonism', was the cornerstone of the Romantic movement from its beginning, and represented a fumdamental shift in Western musical culture (p5)

He goes on to say ‘The Cannonic ideology leads to a number of corollaries that form the basic assumptions of Classically orientated musicians. This include;

• Great respect for composers, represented by the cults of genius and originality,
• The almost scriptural awe of musical ‘works’,
• An obsession with the original intentions of the composer,
• The practice of listening to music as ritual,
• The custom of repeated hearings of a limited number of works

. (p6)

I thought the list might entertain you

[MrGongGong]

Thanks for this DS
looks mighty interesting

and love the list

[DracoM]

Q: in today's recital / concert centres, more often than not, the programmes are gleaned from a number of centuries / idioms, but in the 18th century, in terms of court composers etc, how often did court audiences and later the small theatre audiences in eg Vienna / Paris / London / Prague / German cities etc, hear variety either of composer or genre? Didn't 'court composers' make pretty sure it was only THEIR stuff that was played?

[doversoul1]

Q: in today's recital / concert centres, more often than not, the programmes are gleaned from a number of centuries / idioms, but in the 18th century, in terms of court composers etc, how often did court audiences and later the small theatre audiences in eg Vienna / Paris / London / Prague / German cities etc, hear variety either of composer or genre? Didn't 'court composers' make pretty sure it was only THEIR stuff that was played?

I think, with the exception of Lully, court composers were, in Donald Macleod’s words ‘ a musical servant (re: Haydn) and as such, had little say in what music to be performed at the court. Lucie Skeaping said at the beginning of today’s Early Music Show (do listen, by the way, if you missed it) something to the effect that, as a means of showing off their powers, emperors, popes, dukes, and princes were very keen on employing some of the finest composers / performers in Europe. Also, we know that composers were very keen on dedicating and publishing their works as widely as possible. In addition, composers travelled extensively to promote their works. Adding all this, I imagine audiences in the early days probably enjoyed quite a wide selection of music, relatively speaking, that is.