The Reunion Genre: A Microhistory of the Musical Life of Pest-Buda in 1857

Abstract

The article presents an ongoing research project which aims to map the everyday musical life of Pest-Buda and outlines the structure of the public musical events of the city. It offers an explanation of the reunion as a concert genre in a regional context. The paper details the background, operation and structure of the musical life of the city based on the analysis of three daily newspapers, the Budapesti Hírlap, the Hölgyfutár and the Pesth-Ofner Lokalblatt und Landbote. More than 5,000 articles relating to the public musical life of the cities appeared in the pages of these newspapers in the 1857 issues alone. The structure of the public concert life of Pest-Buda, based on this microhistorical research, can be divided into the following categories: concerts, opera and musical theatre performances, church music, promenade concerts and promenade music, music performances in cafés and restaurants, balls and dances. From these categories, special attention has been given to the reunion genre, trying to define it more precisely based on existing research (Kálmán Isoz) and on new research on the period’s press material as well as archival musical sources (Eins für Alles. Großes Potpourri by Karl Morelli).

Keywords

• Pest-Buda
• 19th century
• music life
• concerts
• reunions
• military bands