Today Vincent Novello (1781-1861) is remembered as the father of the music-publishing firm. Fiona Palmer's evaluation of Novello the man and the musician in the marketplace draws on rich primary sources. It is the first to provide a rounded view of his life and work, and the nature of his importance both in his own time and to posterity. Novello's early musical training, particularly his experience of music-making in London's embassy chapels, influenced him profoundly. His practical experience as director of music at the Portuguese Embassy Chapel in Mayfair informed his approach to editing and arranging. Fundamental moral and social attitudes underpinned Novello's progress. Ideas on religion, education and the function of family and friendship within society shaped his life choices. The Novello family lived in turbulent times and was widely-read, discussing politics and religion and not only the arts at its social gatherings. Within Vincent and Mary Novello's close circle were radical thinkers with republican views - such as Leigh Hunt and Charles Cowden Clarke - who saw sociability as a means of reorganizing society. Thematic studies focus on Novello as practical musician and educator, as editor, and as composer. His connections with institutions such as the Covent Garden and Pantheon Theatres, the Philharmonic Society and Moorfields Chapel, together with his adjudicating and teaching activities, are examined. In his wide-ranging editorial work Novello found his true vocation positioning himself as preservationist, pioneer and philanthropist. His work as composer, though unremarkable in quality, mirrored the demands and expectations of his consumers. Novello emerges from this study as a visionary who single-mindedly pursued greater musical knowledge for the benefit of everyone.

By the middle of the nineteenth century Lowell Mason (1792-1872) was probably the most famous native-born musician in America. Concentrating almost exclusively on vocal music, he built a spectacular reputation as a choir director and teacher. He published many collections of sacred music that sold in unprecedented numbers and made him a household name. In 1837 he traveled to Europe on a little-publicized trip. This was a bold move decades before such trips by American musicians became commonplace, and his diaries from this time are a primary source of information on early nineteenth-century European music. This edition of Mason's 1837 journal has been carefully edited: throughout, Broyles has attempted to reproduce the original manuscript faithfully, making adjustments only where necessary for intelligibility. Appendices include a list names with brief biographies, an itinerary of the tour, and those letters received during the trip that still survive. An introduction completes this unique and highly readable volume. Michael Broyles is Distinguished Professor of Music and Professor of American History Emeritus at Penn State University and Visiting Professor at Florida State University.

By the mid-nineteenth century music publishing was no longer the provenance of shopkeepers, instrument makers or individual scholars, but a business enterprise undertaken by a new breed of Victorian entrepreneur. Two such were Vincent Novello and his son Alfred, whose music publishing house enjoyed significant growth between 1829 and 1866. Victoria Cooper builds up a picture of Novello during this period and the socio-economic and cultural climate that influenced the company's business decisions. Looking in detail at some of the editions Novello published, she analyzes the editing style of the firm and how this was dictated by Novello's main audience of amateur musicians and choral societies. Scrutiny of Novello's stockbook indicates the financial fortunes of these editions, while correspondence between the firm and composers such as Mendelssohn reveals how Vincent and Alfred went about acquiring new compositions. With its focus on the development of a music publishing business, this study brings a fresh dimension to musicological research. Novello was able to combine business practice with a commitment to disseminate music of educational and artistic value, and the history of the company provides illuminating evidence of the commodification of music in nineteenth-century Britain.

Roman Catholic church music in England served the needs of a vigorous, vibrant and multi-faceted community that grew from about 70,000 to 1.7 million people during the long nineteenth century. Contemporary literature of all kinds abounds, along with numerous collections of sheet music, some running to hundreds, occasionally even thousands, of separate pieces, many of which have since been forgotten. Apart from compositions in the latest Classical Viennese styles and their successors, much of the music performed constituted a revival or imitation of older musical genres, especially plainchant and Renaissance Polyphony. Furthermore, many pieces that had originally been intended to be performed by professional musicians for the benefit of privileged royal, aristocratic or high ecclesiastical elites were repackaged for rendition by amateurs before largely working or lower middle class congregations, many of them Irish. However, outside Catholic circles, little attention has been paid to this subject. Consequently, the achievements and widespread popularity of many composers (such as Joseph Egbert Turner, Henry George Nixon or John Richardson) within the English Catholic community have passed largely unnoticed. Worse still, much of the evidence is rapidly disappearing, partly because it no longer seems relevant to the needs of the modern Catholic Church in England. This book provides a framework of the main aspects of Catholic church music in this period, showing how and why it developed in the way it did. Dr Muir sets the music in its historical, liturgical and legal context, pointing to the ways in which the music itself can be used as evidence to throw light on the changing character of English Catholicism. As a result the book will appeal not only to scholars and students working in the field, but also to church musicians, liturgists, historians, ecclesiastics and other interested Catholic and non-Catholic parties.