First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is a study of the musical activities of Empress Marie Therese, one of the most important patrons in the Vienna of Haydn and Beethoven. Building on extensive archival research, including many documents published here for the first time, John A. Rice describes Marie Therese's activities as commissioner, collector and performer of music, and explores the rich and diverse musical culture that she fostered at court. This book, which will be of interest to musicologists, historians of artistic patronage and taste, and practitioners of women's studies, elucidates this remarkable woman's relations with a host of professional musicians, including Haydn, and argues that she played a significant and hitherto unsuspected role in the inception of one of the era's greatest masterpieces, Beethoven's Fidelio. Other composers discussed include Domenico Cimarosa, Joseph Eybler, Michael Haydn, Johann Simon Mayr, Ferdinando Paer, Antonio Salieri, Joseph Weigl and Paul Wranitzky.

This book explores how the Enlightenment aesthetics of theater as a moral institution influenced cultural politics and operatic developments in Vienna between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Moralistic viewpoints were particularly important in eighteenth-century debates about German national theater. In Vienna, the idea that vernacular theater should cultivate the moral sensibilities of its German-speaking audiences became prominent during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, when advocates of German plays and operas attempted to deflect the imperial government from supporting exclusively French and Italian theatrical performances. Morality continued to be a dominant aspect of Viennese operatic culture in the following decades, as critics, state officials, librettists, and composers (including Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven) attempted to establish and define German national opera. Viennese concepts of operatic didacticism and national identity in theater further transformed in response to the crisis of Emperor Joseph II’s reform movement, the revolutionary ideas spreading from France, and the war efforts in facing Napoleonic aggression. The imperial government promoted good morals in theatrical performances through the institution of theater censorship, and German-opera authors cultivated intensely didactic works (such as Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio) that eventually became the cornerstones for later developments of German culture.

A unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making provided by the study of domestic musical arrangements of opera.

Anniversary publication of the Belvedere The Belvedere in Vienna epitomizes the changes that have taken place over the course of three centuries in the concept of what constitutes a museum. Originally built by Prince Eugene of Savoy to enhance his prestige as a prince, under Maria Theresa, the Upper Belvedere became one of the world’s first public museums. The idea of presenting Austrian art in an international context, which in 1903 motivated the establishment of the Modern Gallery in the Lower Belvedere, remains the key objective of this world-famous cultural institution. In this critical homage, renowned authors explore enduring questions that transcend the different epochs, such as : What ordering concepts are evident in art presentation ? How contemporary were these presentations in an international context ? What kind of public were they aimed at ? Anniversary publication of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere: a critical homage to a place of art with a diverse history spanning centuries Exhibition until January 7, 2024 With contributions from Johanna Aufreiter, Björn Blauensteiner, Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Christiane Erharter, Nora Fischer, Anna Frasca-Rath, Antoinette Friedenthal, Martin Fritz, Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Sabine Grabner, Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner, Cäcilia Henrichs, Alice Hoppe-Harnoncourt, Christian Huemer, Georg Lechner, Stefan Lehner, Gernot Mayer, Monika Mayer, Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Georg Plattner, Matthew Rampley, Luise Reitstätter, Stella Rollig, Claudia Slanar, Franz Smola, Nora Sternfeld, Silvia Tammaro, Wolfgang Ullrich, Leonhard Weidinger, Christian Witt-Dörring, Luisa Ziaja, and Christoph Zuschlag

Liberalism, in the nineteenth-century sense of the term, came to Austria much later than it came to western Europe, for it was not until the 1840s that the industrial revolution reached the Hapsburg Empire, bringing in its train miserable working conditions and economic upheaval, which created bitter resentment among the working classes and a longing for a Utopia that would cure the ills of mankind. This new-found liberalism, largely self-contained and uninfluenced by liberal movements outside the empire, centered mainly in the idea of individual freedom and constitutional monarchism. In the end, the revolution failed because the moderates proved too weak to control the radical excesses, and the radicals in growing desperation tried to turn the rebel idea into a democratic and, at the extreme, a republican one. Fear of this extremism finally drove the moderates into the counterrevolutionary camp. Since the Viennese rebels fought to achieve many of the goals fundamental to democracy, historians have generally tended to idealize the revolutionaries and forget their shortcomings. R. John Rath has sought to evaluate the revolution from the point of view of the political ideologies of 1848 rather than those of the mid-twentieth century. Moreover, he has clearly and objectively stated the case for both the left and the right, pointing out the failures and shortcomings of each. At its publication, this was the first detailed English-language book on the Viennese Revolution of 1848 in more than a hundred years. The author has not confined himself to the bare bones of history. In his descriptions of the times and lively portrayals of the chief actors of the revolution, he has vividly restaged a drama of an ideal that failed.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.