Music for the multitude: accounts of brass bands entering Enderby Jackson's Crystal Palace contests in the 1860s

Herbert, T. and Myers, A. (2010) Music for the multitude: accounts of brass bands entering Enderby Jackson's Crystal Palace contests in the 1860s. Early Music, 38 (4) pp. 571-584. ISSN 0306-1078 (print) 1741-7260 (online)

Abstract

Jackson, one of the most talented musical entrepreneurs of the mid-Victorian period, claimed to have invented the brass band contest. One of his major achievements was the establishment of contests held at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, on the outskirts of London, between 1860 and 1863. They brought mass audiences to the edifice, which had been moved from its original site in central London. One of the main purposes of the event was to contribute to the establishment of the new venue as a center for entertainment at a national rather than a merely local level. Jackson was a brilliant commercial strategist who based his organizational method on meticulous planning. Each band wishing to enter the contest was required to complete a form that detailed critical information about its musical and social identity. Seventy-five of these forms survive in the care of the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, and they provide a rich and intimate source of information on the instrumentation, repertoire, and social framework of bands of the period. Taken with information about the reception of the events, the sources cast an important light on the nature of one of the most widespread and popular forms of public musical entertainment of the period, and about the entrepreneurial techniques that were employed to make it successful.

Actions (login required)

View Item