The Sound of Habsburg

Though the Habsburg Empire fell apart as a state in 1918, it lives on through its music. This book explores why the Habsburg Monarchy was so productive in all spheres of culture. It was above all an empire of music, producing much of the canon of what we now call “classical” music. At the time though, this music was not old and staid but a radically new and exciting phenomenon. The Sound of Habsburg narrates the history of the Habsburg Empire from the Enlightenment to its collapse in the wake of the First World War through the prism of 100 pieces of music.

Written in engaging language that will appeal to a broader audience, this accessibility is augmented by an innovative new approach to music writing. Each chapter contains five to ten musical examples that can be downloaded via QR codes as an accompaniment to the reading experience. The book is broken up into ten chapters that each focus on a particular composer and their relationship to a key transformation in the history of the Habsburg Empire. For example, how Mozart helped create the figure of the freelance (and financially precarious) artist, and what Beethoven can tell us about the revolutionary potential of music.

Philipp Ther is an award-winning historian and an elegant stylist whose books have been translated into 15 different languages. An expert on Central European history, he is also a passionate musician and has published widely on music, with his book Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe enjoying an international readership. The Sound of Habsburg will appeal to specialists and laypeople alike, providing a new perspective on the canon of classical music, and revealing the ways in which the legacy of this musical moment in history lives on around the world, and not just in opera houses and concert halls.