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Mecenes et Musiciens: Du salon au concert a Paris sous la IIIe Republique.

Article Excerpt
Mecenes et Musiciens: Du salon au concert a Paris sous la IIIe Republique. By Myriam Chimenes. Paris: Fayard, 2004. [776 p. ISBN 2-213-61696-5. [euro]30.] Illustrations, bibliography, index.

Wealthy patrons have always played an important role in Western musical life, but while the contributions of a Louis XIV or a Count Esterhazy might seem readily apparent, the story of musical patronage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has seemed largely peripheral to a historical narrative that has concentrated on composers' increasing individuality and independence. Except for a few obvious exceptions (Wagner and King Ludwig of Bavaria, for example) there has been little scholarly interest in the relationships between musicians and wealthy individuals in the years after 1800.

Scholars have recently begun to look more closely at the importance of wealthy patrons to the development of music and musical life during the past two centuries. A growing number of studies have been devoted to important individuals (e.g., Sylvia Kahan, Music's Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princess de Polignac [Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003]) or to the role of patrons in general (e.g., Ralph P. Locke and Cyrilla Barr, ed. Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activities in America Since 1860 [Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997]). The latest contribution to this expanding field of inquiry comes from Myriam Chimenes, who has written an important documentary study of musical patronage in Paris during the Third Republic.

Chimenes' book is especially welcome, for the salon culture of nineteenth-century Paris provided for...

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