“A Relic of an Age Still Capable of a Romantic Outlook”: Musical Biography and The Master Musicians Series, 1899-1906 CHRISTOPHER WILEY

Musical biography proliferated in England in the hagiographical climate of the later nineteenth century, partly as an outcome of the rise of the aesthetic of the idolised Great Composer and the corresponding emergence of musical canons (whose constituency was, however, by no means certain at this time). This article presents a theoretically-enriched demonstration of the paradigms through which its late Victorian authors attempted to canonise their subjects, focussing on three interrelated thematic issues that are of especial importance to musical biography as compared with that of other disciplines: the relative invisibility of women, the absence of national heroes, and the scope for discussion of the works. My investigation proceeds via an analytical case study of the metabiography of the Master Musicians series (London: Dent, 1899-1906), whose original twelve volumes together represent one of the earliest significant attempts in England to establish and