Music Store as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon

Abstract

The subject of this article is the role and place of music store as a phenomenon in cultu­ral history. It is located “at the intersection” of historical and socio-cultural musicology but it has not been previously studied from this perspective. The relevance of the topic is related to the fact that the study of the music store phenomenon in all versati­lity gives an opportunity to have a new look at different aspects of musical and social life: history of performing art, concert practice, music management, development of music instruments, book and music publishing. It covers the emergence of music stores (based on bookstalls with an expanded pro­duct range, publishing houses, factories for production of musical instruments); their locations as well as different aspects of functioning (including in the system of music management, edu­cation and enlightenment). On the example of the most famous stores of Moscow and Petersburg of the end of the 18th — beginning of the 20th century, it is shown that music stores played a strongly pronounced culture spreading role in the history of Russian culture. In particular, reading rooms and libraries were organized at music stores; concerts were organized with their mediation; skilled staff of the music industry grew in their depths. There is noted that the cultural function of music store was particularly evident in the provinces where it would become a noticeable cultural and intellectual centre. The article indicates main directions of further research in this and related fields of knowledge; traces the fate of this institution in our days: changing the forms of work, going from offline to online space.