ABSTRACT
Music-making was not a socially or politically neutral act. There was a clear acceptance that music was an occupation best reserved for the upper strata of society. William Hayes went further and insisted that music could only be appreciated by the true gentleman, the musical dilettante, with time, money and learning enough to carry out an objective study of the subject. The temptation to treat the north-east as a homogeneous region with uniform tastes should be rejected; real differences existed between the musical characters of Durham, Newcastle and the smaller towns. In essence, Durham and Newcastle – the two large centres in the region – may be taken as largely representative of two strands in the musical life of the century. Music retreated into the private home, as it had during the Commonwealth a century and a half earlier, and became a quiet, private pleasure whose propriety could not be doubted.
