ABSTRACT
Music lovers with sufficient wealth and social status could choose between a multiplicity of diversions to suit their taste and purse. Musical productions could be enjoyed at the English playhouses in Covent Garden and Drury Lane, dances and entracte music. In addition to events that anyone might attend by purchasing a ticket, concerts of a more private nature were organized by musical societies, fashionable soirees, early music groups and convivial glee clubs. Critical to the growth of public performances during the period was the withdrawal of royal and direct aristocratic patronage, which led musicians to make their living independent of any one patron or institution; forced by economic necessity to broaden their horizons, they turned their attention away from the court to the affluent homes and public places of the metropolis. The freelance musician not only performed and composed but also taught regularly, sold or published music, ran music in theatres and promoted concerts.
