The inevitable pairing of the names of Britten and Purcell, a pairing promoted by Britten himself, was one in which he was linked to Britain’s ‘only’ composer. In response, Britten willingly took on the mantle of hope for English composition. At the same time, there is no doubt that the Britten felt an affinity with the earlier composer, and drew considerable strength and inspiration from his works. However, although Britten’s response is often presented as a personal one, this article suggests that his engagement with Purcell’s music was part of an earlier and broader picture of the use and reuse of earlier English music in the first decades of the twentieth century. His engagement with Purcell’s music, which included realisations of his songs and the use of forms and techniques associated with the composer, was at its most intense in 1945, and was focused on the period round 21 and 22 November, the dates of the Wigmore Hall concerts which saw the premieres of Britten’s Quartet No. 2 and The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. The reception of Britten’s ‘Purcell’ works was sometimes mixed, but this article concludes that for Britten, it was a matter of supreme enjoyment.

Chapter 4 proposes that popular opera had a ‘binary identity’ because it was understood as a domestic as well as a public entertainment. ‘Contexts’ begins by establishing the prevalence of singing and amateur acting in France. Privileged groups left behind the best record of activity, but Charles Perrault and Le Cerf de La Viéville stressed that opera melodies were sung throughout all social classes. An article by James Parakilas introduces the notion of private performance as a valid aspect of opera history. Arrangements of French opera are demonstrated through early artefacts from Amsterdam and mid-century periodicals from Paris. Solo versions, with texts, of opera overtures and chaconnes are illustrated and contextualised. Laurent Bordelon’s ‘opéra comique’, Arlequin Roland furieux, is identified as the first comedy to bear that designation, conceived for domestic use. The nature and sale of music for Comédie Française plays are described; Jean-Claude Gillier’s music was highly valued. In ‘Those Who Play Instruments’ arrangements of popular opera are studied in relation to the acquisition of musical skills: copying, arranging, figured bass playing. ‘Domestic Operas’ discusses contrasting works made and published for private performance in mid-century: Hautemer’s Le Troc and Marmontel and La Borde’s Annette et Lubin.

Viennese dance composers in the decades around 1800 frequently used melodies from current operatic repertoire as the basis of their dance compositions. This practice belonged to a wider culture of arranging popular repertoire for other mediums. However, the transfer of music from the stage to the ballroom also has much to reveal about the overlap between these two areas of Viennese cultural life, and about operatic reception history. A reciprocal effect existed between an opera’s popularity and its arrangement for the ballroom, wherein success in the theatre contributed to success in the ballroom context and vice versa. Operas that contained an abundance of dance-like melodies therefore held an advantage both in the theatre and the ballroom context. This has particular relevance for the respective reception histories of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara, and for the notorious Rossini craze of the 1810s and 1820s.

The boom in arrangements in the early nineteenth century was partly a function of the enthusiasm of the publishers themselves, who recognised their sales potential, especially that of small-scale arrangements of large-scale works by increasingly well-known composers. But while publishers capitalised on the popularity of arrangements, they also helped fuel that popularity by making otherwise relatively inaccessible works readily available in comparably cheap editions, in this way helping with canon formation. This chapter studies four important publishers of early nineteenth-century arrangements, from Bonn (Simrock), Leipzig (Breitkopf and Härtel), and London (Lavenu and Monzani and Hill), considering the types of arrangements that they made or commissioned, how the arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies they published fit into the market, and how they functioned in canon formation. Studying these publishers’ catalogues reveals the popularity of arrangements for varied chamber ensembles, alongside the highly popular piano transcriptions. Indeed, arrangements for chamber ensembles make up a substantial portion of published chamber music at this point.

This chapter provides an overview of the social context in which arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies for various chamber arrangements became extremely popular, representative of arrangement culture more generally. Beethoven described his era as ‘a fruitful age of arrangements’: this chapter considers why. The main arrangers of the era are discussed in overview, including Beethoven, with attention to the reasons why they cultivated musical arrangement. For Beethoven and others, there were aesthetic and artistic grounds. Beethoven made several arrangements of his own works for chamber ensemble, which probably had mostly to do his own development of thinking about chamber music, rather than with marketability or flexibility of performance options

Previous chapters in this book have focused on domestic (or municipal) law within Hong Kong. This chapter examines the interface between Hong Kong law and international law and Chinese law (PRC law). It looks at the distinct international legal personality that Hong Kong possesses, Hong Kong’s engagement with international entities and the application of international law in Hong Kong. Previous chapters have discussed certain aspects of the interface between Hong Kong and the PRC legal system, and this chapter builds on this by focusing on mutual legal assistance between the two legal systems, access to the Mainland market for legal services from Hong Kong and cross-border crime.

During his lifetime, Brahms accumulated a sizeable fortune. Although the early days were not without difficulties, his finances then accumulated steadily and virtually uninterruptedly. When he died in 1897, he left behind not only manuscripts of his own works, but also an extensive collection of other composers’ autograph manuscripts (including of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, etc.) as well as bonds worth over 181,000 Gulden.The size of the sum is evident when one compares the rent that he paid his landlady Coelestine Truxa between 1887 and 1897 for his three-room apartment in Vienna’s Karlsgasse, which amounted half-yearly to 347 Gulden and 25 Kreuzer.

Brahms grew up in the Hamburg‘Gängeviertel’, an area of workers, small-scale artisans and tradesmen in modest circumstances [see Ch. 1 ‘Childhood in Hamburg’]. Later on, when he could determine his own lifestyle, luxury still held no appeal.

During his lifetime, Brahms accumulated a sizeable fortune. Although the early days were not without difficulties, his finances then accumulated steadily and virtually uninterruptedly. When he died in 1897, he left behind not only manuscripts of his own works, but also an extensive collection of other composers’ autograph manuscripts (including of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, etc.) as well as bonds worth over 181,000 Gulden.The size of the sum is evident when one compares the rent that he paid his landlady Coelestine Truxa between 1887 and 1897 for his three-room apartment in Vienna’s Karlsgasse, which amounted half-yearly to 347 Gulden and 25 Kreuzer.

Brahms grew up in the Hamburg‘Gängeviertel’, an area of workers, small-scale artisans and tradesmen in modest circumstances [see Ch. 1 ‘Childhood in Hamburg’]. Later on, when he could determine his own lifestyle, luxury still held no appeal.