Sans Souci Research Articles

THE HAPPIEST STUDENT of history is the one blessed with the most catholic curiosity; and the history of music is certainly one of the things about which he is eager to learn. How large a part did music play in the social and cultural life of a given people at a given time? What sort of music was popular? What was the social and economic status of its composers and its impresarios? What admission prices were charged for its public performances? Who went to listen if he could find the price? Who was willing to stand through a performance if only he might hear it? How is this laudable curiosity of the student to be satisfied? For the musician, perhaps best by intensive specialized studies of the history of each form of composition, biographical sketches of the great composers, and analyses of their various moods and methods of musical expression. The general student will probably learn more about the history of music if it is presented to him merely as one of the many aspects of the history of culture. If he tries to bring back to life the participants in a week-end party in a Tudor manor house, knowledge of their songs will help him; if to reconstruct a picture of Rheinsberg or Sans Souci in the days of Frederick of Prussia, that flute-playing king's musicians and their music must be included in it. Conversely, his own enjoyment of Handel's Water Music will be greatly enhanced by what he already knows of the part played by the barges, the Thames, and the river-side inns in the pageantry of Handel's London.