Charles Avison in Context: National and International Musical Links in Eighteenth-Century North-East England

by Roz Southey (Editor), Eric Cross (Editor)

Despite recent interest in music-making in the so-called ’provinces’, the idea still lingers that music-making outside London was small in scale, second-rate and behind the times. However, in Newcastle upon Tyne, the presence of a nationally known musician, Charles Avison (1709-1770), prompts a reassessment of how far this idea is still tenable. Avison’s life and work illuminates many wider trends. His relationships with his patrons, the commercial imperatives which shaped his activities, the historical and social milieu in which he lived and worked, were influenced by and reflected many contemporary Latitudinarianism, Methodism, the improvement of church music, the aesthetics of the day including new ideas circulating in Europe, discussions of issues such as gentility, and the new commercialism of leisure. He can be considered as the notional centre of a web of connections, both musical and non-musical, extending through every part of Britain and into both Europe and America. This book looks at these connections, exploring the ways in which the musical culture in the north-east region interacted with, and influenced, musical culture elsewhere, and the non-musical influences with which it was involved, including contemporary religious, philosophical and commercial developments, establishing that regional centres such as Newcastle could be as well-informed, influential and vibrant as London.

222 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2017

About the author

Roz Southey is a novelist and musicologist living in the north-east of England. She is the author of the Charles Patterson mysteries, a series of detective novels set in Newcastle upon Tyne and published by Creme de la Crime (now an imprint of Severn House); the fifth novel in the series will be published in March 2011. Her short stories have won a number of competitions; one was published in The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime (ed. Maxim Jakubowski, 2009) and another will appear in the 2011 version of the same collection. She has also published non-fiction books and articles, including local and family history, and academic papers.