British Music Festival Repertoire 1695-1940

Musical Festivals Database

Musical Festivals Database

British Musical Festival Repertoire 1695-1940

The Musical Festivals Database (MFD) is a fully-searchable index of programs, personnel, ensembles and venues of musical festivals held between 1695 and 1940. Musical festivals (sometimes called choral festivals) were one of the most important means of concert music production in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. While the repertoire of such festivals began centered around choral performance, particularly as a celebration of Handel’s oratorios (particularly Messiah), festivals reflected contemporary British tastes with increasing selections from opera in the late 18th century and instrumental music by the mid-19th. Festivals also became an important proving ground for composers, since they offered regular commissions (from the 1830s forward), and the largest immediate audience that many could hope for, until the advent of radio broadcasting.

The MFD will allow users to search repertoire, personnel, location, venue, and other categories of information for over a thousand musical festivals held in Great Britain between 1695 and 1940.

The creation, programming and implementation of the Musical Festivals Database has been funded in part by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the Five Colleges of Ohio (Digital Scholarship: Projects & Pedagogy, 2013), Humanities Writ Large at Duke University, the Oberlin College Office of Research and Development, and the Office of the Dean, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

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