David Conway analyses why and how Jews, virtually absent from Western art music until the end of the eighteenth century, came to be represented in all branches of the profession within fifty years as leading figures – not only as composers and performers, but as publishers, impresarios and critics. His study places this process in the context of dynamic economic, political, sociological and technological changes and also of developments in Jewish communities and the Jewish religion itself, in the major cultural centres of Western Europe. Beginning with a review of attitudes to Jews in the arts and an assessment of Jewish music and musical skills, in the age of the Enlightenment, Conway traces the story of growing Jewish involvement with music through the biographies of the famous, the neglected and the forgotten, leading to a new and radical contextualisation of Wagner's infamous 'Judaism in Music'.

Features
• Provides the first explanation of Wagner's controversial 'Judaism in Music' in the context of what Jews and musicians were actually doing at the time

• Based on substantial original research, this book presents a wide-ranging scope, analysing biographies of little-known as well as well-known musicians and covering music as a whole – composers, performers, critics and impresarios

• Examines political, economic, social and technological issues infrequently addressed in musical histories, giving an unusual and wide-ranging context of this topic