Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz, and their Publishers

Robert Schumann's and Hector Berlioz's careers took §place during a period in western Europe when royal §patronage had given way to the middle-class music §consumer and when composers and performers had §begun to earn their livelihoods by serving this new §audience. Prior to this time, music publishing was §concerned with the needs of a smaller, more select §and mostly aristocratic audience. Both composers §needed the income and recognition that publication §could bring yet there is little academic literature §that provides an in-depth examination of these §crucial relationships. In this study artistic §achievement and commercialism are viewed through §these composers' business practices and §interactions with music publishers at the dawn of §the consumer-centered music business. This book §provides a unique and revealing glimpse into the §composers' personalities and the way they conducted §themselves in the prosaic but necessary activity of §earning a living in composition. General readers §interested in the lives of Schumann and Berlioz as §well as musicologists will find a perspective on §each man s nature and character here that has been §generally lacking in other accounts.