ABSTRACT
It is well known that, from the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was a marked increase in the number of foreign musicians who came to Britain to profit from their endeavours, brought to these shores by the British's love of continental music. One of the ways through which they could make money was through the sale of music, a small proportion of which was sold through subscription. In other cases, native composers and/or publishers produced new editions of music by foreign composers to cater for the demands of the music-buying public. This chapter considers the accepted view of how dominant foreign music was in Britain, using the Dataset of Subscribers to explore the position of both foreign and native composers, and how subscription publication benefitted those who were not British. There is also an exploration of the reasons as to why the majority of works issued by subscription were produced by musicians of British or Irish birth. This study ultimately sheds light on the development of Britain's status as “the land without music,” a label derived from Oskar Schmitz's book of the same title.
