The Musician As Entrepreneur, 1700-1914: Managers, Charlatans and Idealists.

The Musician As Entrepreneur, 1700-1914: Managers, Charlatans and Idealists, edited by William Weber. Indiana University Press (601 N. Morton St., Bloomington, IN 47404), 2004. 269; pp. $44.95.

For anyone who has contemplated the economic realities of musicians, or wondered why Mozart was so poor and Liszt so well-heeled, this book will satisfy your thirst for that knowledge. It is as interesting as the provocative title might lead readers to expect.

Edited by William Weber, professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, the book contains chapters by various authors on areas of their specialty, divided into four sections: "Overview of the Subject," "Early Musical Entrepreneurs," "Concert Management in the Nineteenth Century" and "Women as Entrepreneurs." Each author's contribution is a scholarly, well-documented chapter. The reader should expect this book to cover its topics in detail and in a well-researched and well-thought-out manner.

It is the fascinating nature of the subject matter that marries scholarly discipline with intriguing reading. Beginning with Telemann in Leipzig (1700), the authors escort the reader through the musicians and their abilities to establish their fortunes or lack thereof, such as the story of Parisian pianist Henri Herz, who toured America for five years in the mid-nineteenth century to rebuild his fortune, which had been lost in a French piano factory endeavor. Dana Gooley's chapter on Franz Liszt clearly explains the brilliance of the master, not limited to the piano, but in the area of marketing itself. Liszt's role in creating a literal cult of followers and in establishing the romantic image of the artist as "an original, radically independent hero, leading the audience into previously unknown domains ... with his spontaneous, overflowing genius" also is explored.

This is, quite simply, good stuff, well-written, solidly documented and, best yet, very interesting. The book will satisfy the thirst of historians, musicians and perhaps even an economist or two. Reviewed by Kathleen Rountree, NCTM, Greensboro, North Carolina.