>I think the reality was probably more difficult to
>characterize (and knowing the trends of historical scholarship
>in general, there's probably a lot more being written about
>performance in the eighteenth and nineteenth century these
>days; it would be worth an ebsco search, for sure...).

I think what I was going for was far more general in the sense of the performers were at the relatively strict control of the conductor. Composers when not conducting themselves picked their conductors. Conductors picked their musicians. A bonding sort of happend between them all around the composition. Not so much the other way around.

>Soloists weren't *that* rare, and by the mid-nineteenth
>century composers were shifting toward a more recognizable
>role. Not sure about the prominence of orchestras.

Yes you are right in a sense. A particular soloists skill on violin by example would be noted and even thought of in the composition. Yes they could play this solo perfectly. But the measured wayy in which it was structured meant that it was the composition for the soloist, if that makes sense. This beatuliful piece for solo violin. And then there's the ______ version of it which epitomized the piece. We know the soloists around their interpretations.

>And we can't understate the degree to which composers,
>conductors and musicians (namely soloists) intermingled. Not
>unlike jazz - where you have band leaders like Ellington or
>Davis handpicking their co-players and writing tunes around
>their outfit - composition was more collaborative than it
>might seem.

Agreed.

>What that does to your general statement (if anything)... I'm
>not entirely sure. :)

Not too much, and I may be mistaken but i read approval in that little grins.


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