Evolution and Victorian Musical Culture

Explores the musical background to Darwinism and the development of the relationship between science and the arts in Victorian Britain.

Bennett Zon (Author)

9781107020443, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 October 2017

374 pages, 27 b/w illus.
25.3 x 18 x 2.3 cm, 0.91 kg

'… Zon's engaging, authoritative, far-reaching study will be required reading for those interested in nineteenth-century culture at large. Evolution and Victorian Musical Culture will be of particular value to those researching histories of music, science, aesthetics, pedagogy, or those working at the intersections of these disciplines.' Rebecca Spence, BSLS Review (www.bsls.ac.uk)

This engaging book explores the dynamic relationship between evolutionary science and musical culture in Victorian Britain, drawing upon a wealth of popular scientific and musical literature to contextualize evolutionary theories of the Darwinian and non-Darwinian revolutions. Bennett Zon uses musical culture to question the hegemonic role ascribed to Darwin by later thinkers, and interrogates the conceptual premise of modern debates in evolutionary musicology. Structured around the Great Chain of Being, chapters are organized by discipline in successively ascending order according to their object of study, from zoology and the study of animal music to theology and the music of God. Evolution and Victorian Musical Culture takes a non-Darwinian approach to the interpretation of Victorian scientific and musical interrelationships, debunking the idea that the arts had little influence on contemporary scientific ideas and, by probing the origins of musical interdisciplinarity, the volume shows how music helped ideas about evolution to evolve.

Introduction
1. Zoomusicology
2. Ethnomusicology
3. Folk musicology
4. Music pedagogy
5. Music biography
6. Music history
7. Music theology
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ], History of science [PDX], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Romantic music [c 1830 to c 1900 AVGC5], Theory of music & musicology [AVA]