ABSTRACT
During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries unprecedented developments took place in the spheres of commerce and finance. From 1688 onwards the standard of living in this country gradually rose, and in spite of occasional setbacks all classes benefited from the improved trading conditions which had slowly developed since the Restoration. In various ways, music as well as literature and the drama was affected by a situation in which opulence stimulated a desire for novelty and encouraged unfamiliar forms of artistic expression. The early years of the eighteenth century witnessed a modest development of the public concert very much in the form we are familiar with today. The abundant musical life of the pleasure gardens provided a considerable amount of business for music publishers during the eighteenth century. Corporate musical activity—as we may gather from the lists of subscribers to musical works—was not confined to the growing industrial towns and the cathedral cities.
