BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Spectacle\, the Middle Class\, and Infrastructure at the Yorkshire Grand Musical Festivals\, 1823-35 - Charles McGuire (Oberlin College Cons ervatory &\; The University of York) DTSTART:20130213T170000Z DTEND:20130213T180000Z UID:TALK42892@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:30200 DESCRIPTION:In England\, the provincial music festival was the most import ant means of concert music production in the 18th and 19th centuries. Thro ugh such festivals\, the middle classes ultimately became arbiters of musi cal taste in this period. Music festivals introduced individuals outside o f London to music by contemporary composers\, both foreign and domestic\, and shaped the genres (predominantly choral\, including oratorios and dram atic cantatas) desired and celebrated by the English. Such festivals also shifted the progression of musicians from a servant class\, regarded as mo rally suspect because of their associations with decadent aristocratic gen res like opera\, to a respectable middle-class profession. Finally\, the c haritable associations of the festivals encouraged the English to stop thi nking of music as a mere pleasurable pastime and view it instead as didact ic\, with the potential to become a moralizing force.\n\nIn the 1820s\, mu sical festivals went from a local to a national phenomenon\, increasingly including a larger middle-class audience. This middle-class audience deman ded spectacle\, such as the best operatic stars of the London stage\, the largest orchestras then available in Britain\, and – particularly for fe stivals held in cathedrals – comfortable seating and concert platforms t hat blended pleasingly into the Gothic architectural buildings surrounding them. Creating such an interior infrastructure thus became an expensive a nd time consuming task\, and caused one of the primary objections to holdi ng festivals in this era: that the modifications required to turn a cathed ral into a concert venue would somehow damage its fabric. This fear allowe d George Markham\, Dean of York Minster from 1802 to 1822 to block festiva ls there until his death.\n\nWere Markham’s fears justified? What were t he potential damages to a cathedral’s fabric that creating such a visual spectacle might incur? The construction undertaken for the Yorkshire Gran d Musical Festivals held partially in York Minster from 1823-1835 provides a case study of the extensive infrastructure creation thought necessary f or contemporary festivals held in cathedrals. As this paper will show\, th is festival required substantial and intrusive building work in the nave\, frequently limiting access to the area for months before the festival com menced. Using contemporary documents including lithographs of the festival s published as commemorative souvenirs\, the minutes of the festival’s o rganizing committee\, correspondence and bills for services rendered from laborers\, as well as architectural drawings\, this presentation will trac e what the Yorkshire Grand Musical Festival’s organizers imagined was re quired to create a sublime visual spectacle capable of creating comfort\, ensuring the solidification of class divisions\, but most of all\, matchin g the expected vocal pyrotechnics from the solo singers engaged at these c oncerts. LOCATION:Recital Room\, Faculty of Music\, West Road END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR