EMPIRE OF THE SONG

by Olivia Bailey

This great book tells the story of Victorian music, how it emerged and developed through this time of empire building and industrial boom under the reign of Queen Victoria. With free CD!

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901 and this book outlines the development of popular music over these sixty four years which saw some of the greatest changes in music that Britain has ever seen.
 

It was the time of the British Empire and with it came many cross-cultural influences as well as it being a time of great social change.

The Victorians were vigorous and enthusiastic about life and as a nation were extraordinarily industrious. They wrote huge tomes and novels, travelled across continents, encountered new ‘savage’ cultures, established trade, invented hundreds of machines including the bicycle, and pushed forward the boundaries of science. Cloth, pharmaceuticals and steel all poured out of the factories; the railways spread their iron tracks across the countryside.
 

In amongst all the hard work and the sound of factories could be heard the music. Victorian music had to be popular to survive, although this did not hinder great diversity in the forms it took.

From polkas and waltzes at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, the reintroduction of Christmas Carols through the influence of her German husband Prince Albert, the start of music hall in the 1850s and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, through the invention of the gramophone in the 1877.
 

Victorian Britain was most definitely the ‘Empire of the Song’.

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.3 inches
• Includes CD with songs by Gilbert & Sullivan, Humperdinck, Mendelssohn etc.

A great gift for anyone who is interested in music or history!