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The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

“Leisure with Decorum”: Gentlemen Making Music in the Georgian era

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

<p>This project examines the musical activities of Georgian gentlemen with the goal of illustrating the ways that recreational music-making tested the boundaries of gender, class, and nationality. While the English nobility could respectably engage in music-making, socialize with professional musicians (subverting, or temporarily suspending otherwise rigid class boundaries), and openly extol the virtues of Continental culture without compromising their gentlemanliness, English gentlemen walked a much thinner line. In pursuit of these claims I will expand the scope of primary sources beyond conduct books and novels to include selections of unpublished, peripheral accounts of recreational music-making as found in letters, diaries, printed and handwritten music books, amateur drawings, and other unconventional sources. By basing my investigation on materials that are not often examined for their combined musical and sociohistorical content, I shed new light on the largely invisible musical practices of Georgian gentlemen.</p>

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Doctor of Philosophy
Level thesis:degree_level
Doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Music
Grantor
The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York
Year dc:date.available
2021

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Chang, Lidia A
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Stephanie Jensen-Moulton
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Christina Bashford
  • Talia Schaffer
  • Sylvia Kahan
  • Allan Atlas

Subjects

dc:subject × 10

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4471
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-5547

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
City University of New York - Graduate Center
Base URL
academicworks.cuny.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Chang, Lidia A. “Leisure with Decorum”: Gentlemen Making Music in the Georgian era. Doctoral thesis, The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York, 2021. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4471