Prof Fiona M Palmer
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Biography
Fiona M. Palmer (Professor of Music) is a musicologist and a performer whose research expertise lies in the cultural history of music and musicians in the marketplace (1780s–1940s). Fiona's publications include studies of soloists, conductors, performance/professional institutions, and music publishers and she is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her research explores the culture and commerce of the British music profession by engaging with issues including career trajectories, professionalization, networking, reception, and performance practice. Her current large-scale research project is focused on a monograph (under contract with Boydell Press) and provisionally titled Podium Power: The Orchestral Conducting Profession in Britain, 1918–1933. This book is planned as a sequel to her groundbreaking prosopography, Conductors in Britain, 1870–1914: Wielding the Baton at the Height of Empire (Boydell, 2017).
Research & Publications
- *Current monograph project focused on the conducting profession in Britain, 1918–1930s (under contract with Boydell Press).
- *Commissioned chapters (in press) on biography and life-writing (OUP) and symphony commissioning practices in Britain since 1900 (CUP).
- Peer-reviewed article, published in Music and Letters (August 2021) 'The Musical Conductors' Association: Collective Podium Power in Wartime Britain', provides new insights in respect of individual and collective agency, networks, collective bargaining, and authority among British conductors who sought to identify themselves as a separate and powerful branch of the music profession during the First World War.
- Most recent monograph: Conductors in Britain, 1870–1914: Wielding the Baton at the Height of Empire (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2017), presents a new interpretation of the evolution of conducting as a profession in late-Victorian Britain. The varied fortunes of eight conductors (Julius Benedict, William Cusins, Arthur Sullivan, Joseph Barnby, Alexander C. Mackenzie, Frederic H. Cowen, Dan Godfrey Jr and Landon Ronald) provide a lens through which institutional and professional opportunities during this dynamic period are analyzed in a fresh and richly-contextualized way. Drawing on detailed research into British concert-life it sheds new light on the histories of organizations including the Philharmonic Society of London, Liverpool Philharmonic Society, Manchester's Hallé Orchestra, the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, the Royal Choral Society, Birmingham Promenade Concerts and music festivals nationwide.
- Fiona’s previous monographs include: Vincent Novello (1781–1861): Music for the Masses (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006) — the first large-scale contextualized reappraisal of the career of the pioneering London-based editor and publisher. This monograph complements her earlier book which repositioned one of nineteenth-century London's most influential, well-connected and successful virtuosi: Dragonetti in England (1794–1846): the Career of a Double Bass Virtuoso (Oxford University Press, 1997).
See the Research and Publications tabs for more information on Fiona's areas of expertise and research activities.
Outreach
Memberships
International Musicological Society; North American British Music Studies Association; Royal Musical Association; Society for Musicology in Ireland.
Performing Activities
Training and Previous Employment
https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781783271450/conductors-in-britain-1870-1914/
Research Interests
- Socio-economic history of music/the music business
- Conducting/conductors/the conducting profession
- Music in Britain
- Biography (including career trajectories, image-making and influence)
- Institutional histories
- Music criticism
- Orchestras and choral societies
- Performance practice including music publishing
Book
Year | Publication | |
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2017 | Palmer, Fiona M. (2017) Conductors in Britain c. 1870-1914: Wielding the Baton at the Height of Empire. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. [Link] | |
2006 | Palmer, Fiona M. (2006) Vincent Novello (1781-1861): Music for the Masses. : Ashgate Publishing. | |
1997 | Palmer, Fiona M. (1997) Dragonetti in England (1794-1846): the Career of a Double Bass Virtuoso. : Oxford University Press. | |
1996 | Palmer, Fiona M. (1996) Barber Evening Concerts and Operas: the First Fifty Years. Birmingham: Birmingham University Press. |
Peer Reviewed Journal
Year | Publication | |
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2021 | Fiona M. Palmer (2021) 'The Musical Conductors’ Association: Collective Podium Power in Wartime Britain?'. Music and Letters, 102 (3):559-598. [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2020 | Palmer, Fiona M.; Ponchione-Bailey, Cayenna; Traill, John; co-eds; (2020) 'Oxford Conducting Institute Special Issue'. Music Performance Research, 10 (December 2020):1-85. [Link] | |
2020 | Palmer, Fiona M.; Ponchione-Bailey, Cayenna; Traill, John; co-eds; (2020) '‘Guest Editorial: Positioning “conducting studies” in 2020 – where are we and where can we go?’'. Music Performance Research, 10 (December 2020):i-viii. [Link] https://doi.org/10.14439/mpr.10.1 [Full-Text] | |
2005 | Olleson, Philip and Palmer, Fiona M., (2005) 'Publishing Music from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: the Work of Vincent Novello and Samuel Wesley in the 1820s'. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, cxxx :38-73. [DOI] [Full-Text] |
Book Chapter
Year | Publication | |
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2019 | Fiona M. Palmer (2019) ''Madame Stockhausen was not at Rehearsal—but why not?!: Sir George Smart's Perspective on the Dublin Grand Musical Festival of 1831'' In: Irish Musical Studies 12: Documents of Irish History in the Long Nineteenth Century. Dublin : Four Courts Press. [Link] | |
2018 | Palmer Fiona M. (2018) 'Cultural Demand and Supply in an Imperial Trading Centre: Developing the Liverpool Philharmonic Society Orchestra in the Mid-Nineteenth Century' In: Global Perspectives on Orchestras: Collective Creativity and Social Agency. New York : Oxford University Press. [DOI] | |
2016 | Palmer Fiona M. (2016) ''Conductors and Self-Promotion in the British Nineteenth-Century Marketplace'' In: The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial World, 1800-1930. Woodbridge : Boydell Press. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2015 | Fiona M. Palmer (2015) ''The Large-Scale Oratorio Chorus in Nineteenth-Century England: Choral Power and the Role of Handel’s Messiah'' In: Choral Societies and Nationalism in Europe. Leiden : Brill. [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2014 | Fiona M. Palmer (2014) ''Conductors and Conducting in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1840-1895)'' In: Orchestral Conducting in the Nineteenth Century (Speculum Musicae, 23). Turnhout : Brepols. [Link] | |
2012 | Palmer, Fiona M (2012) 'A Home for the 'Phil': Liverpool's First Philharmonic Hall (1849)' In: MUSIC AND INSTITUTIONS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN. ALDERSHOT : ASHGATE PUBLISHING LTD. [Link] | |
2003 | Palmer, Fiona M. (2003) 'Vincent Novello and the Philharmonic Society of London' In: Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies III. Aldershot : Ashgate Publishing. [Link] | |
2002 | Fiona M. Palmer (2002) 'A Halo of Light Around us All: Clementi in 1827 through the eyes of his Contemporaries' In: Muzio Clementi Opera Omnia Volume 61: Muzio Clementi: Studies and Prospects. Bologna : Ut Orpheus Edizioni. [Link] | |
1993 | Fiona M. Palmer (1993) 'Domenico Dragonetti and the Double Bass in London at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century' In: Michael Burden & Irena Cholij(Eds.). A Handbook for Studies in Eighteenth Century Music, iv. Edinburgh : University of Edinburgh: Burden & Cholij. |
Book Review
Year | Publication | |
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2021 | Fiona M. Palmer (2021) Book Review: Peter Holman, Beyond the baton. Musical direction and conducting in Stuart and Georgian Britain, Early Music. Oxford: [Book Review] [Link] [DOI] | |
2020 | Fiona M. Palmer (2020) NABMSA Review: Hannah French. Sir Henry Wood: Champion of J.S. Bach. (Woodbridge UK: Boydell Press, 2019). USA: [Book Review] [Link] | |
2018 | Fiona M. Palmer (2018) Victorian Studies Review: The Social Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music: Composers, Consumers, Communities, by Marie Sumner Lott; pp. viii + 307. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2015; Rival Sisters, Art and Music at the Birth of Modernism, 1815–1915, edited by James H. Rubin with Olivia Mattis; pp. xv + 389. Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2014, Victorian Studies (Summer 2018), pp. 657–60. Victorian Studies: [Book Review] [DOI] | |
2017 | Fiona M. Palmer (2017) NABMSA Review: Bedford’s Musical Society: A History of Bedford’s Choral Society . Michael Benson, with an introduction by Donald Burrows. Woodbridge, UK and New York: Boydell Press, 2015. ii + 289pp. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8515 - 5081 - 7 (hardcover). USA: [Book Review] [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2014 | Professor Fiona M. Palmer (2014) NABMSA Review: 'J. Oates, Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): A Musical Life (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2013)'. [Book Review] [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2010 | Fiona M. Palmer (2010) 'Viotti's Chequered Life'. [Book Review] [DOI] | |
2009 | Palmer, Fiona M. (2009) Robert Beale, Charles Halle: A Musical Life (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007). [Book Review] http://www.music.ucc.ie/JSMI/index.php/jsmi/article/view/64/0 [Full-Text] | |
2002 | Fiona M. Palmer (2002) ‘Professionally Speaking’, Rohr, D., The Careers of Professional Musicians 1750–1850 (Cambridge: CUP, 2001); Olleson, P., The Letters of Samuel Wesley: Professional and Social Correspondence 1797–1837 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001); Kassler, M. & Olleson, P. (eds), Samuel Wesley 1766–1837: A Source Book (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001). [Book Review] | |
2001 | Fiona M. Palmer (2001) Alfred Planyavsky, The Baroque Double Bass Violone, trans. James Barket. [Book Review] | |
2000 | Fiona M. Palmer (2000) ‘Paul Brun, A New History of the Double Bass (France: Paul Brun Productions, 2000)’. [Book Review] |
Radio Presentation
Year | Publication | |
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2019 | Fiona M. Palmer (2019) Why is Handel's Messiah still popular?. Limerick: [Radio Presentation] [Link] | |
2015 | Fiona M. Palmer (2015) Mit Holz und Seele: Millanolo Stradivarius Violin. [Radio Presentation] | |
2013 | Fiona M. Palmer (2013) 'Off The Shelf' Panel Discussion presented by Andy O'Mahony with panellists John Hughes, Kevin O'Connell and Fiona M. Palmer. [Radio Presentation] [Link] |
Encyclopedia Entry
Year | Publication | |
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2018 | Fiona M. Palmer (2018) Choral Societies: England. Amsterdam: [Encyclopedia Entry] [Link] |
Dictionary Entry
Year | Publication | |
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2013 | Fiona M. Palmer (2013) 'Novello Family'. [Dictionary Entry] [Link] | |
2013 | Fiona M. Palmer (2013) ’Novello, (Francis) Vincent’, in Watson, J. R. et al (eds), A New Dictionary of Hymnology (London: Canterbury Press/Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013). [Dictionary Entry] | |
2007 | Fiona M. Palmer (2007) 'Novello, family'. [Dictionary Entry] | |
2004 | Fiona M. Palmer (2004) • ‘Barthélémon, Francois Hippolite (1741–1808)’; • ‘Cervetto, Giacobbe (1682–1783)’; • ‘Clagget, Charles (1740–1820)’; • ‘Condell, Henry (1757–1824)’; • ‘Crosdill, John (1751–1825)’; • ‘Dragonetti, Domenico (1763–1846)’; • ‘Paxton, Stephen (1735–87)’; • ‘Piatti, Alfredo (1822–1901)’ in Harrison, B. (ed.), New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) (commissioned) www.oxforddnb.com . [Dictionary Entry] | |
2001 |
Fiona M. Palmer (2001) ‘Dragonetti, Domenico’, in Sadie, S. (ed.), New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition, 29 vols (London: Macmillan, 2001) vii, 593–4 (commissioned: completely new article) |
Conference Contribution
Year | Publication | |
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2024 | Fiona M. Palmer (2024) 7th Sibelius Academy Symposium on Music History: Musica Mercata ‘Commodifying Orchestral Conductors in 1920s Britain: Conductor Medleys as a Marketplace Microcosm?’ Uniarts Helsinki, Finland, 05/06/2024-07/06/2024. [Link] | |
2024 | Fiona M. Palmer (2024) Da Venezia all’Europa: gli autografi di Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846), virtuoso del contrabbasso “Il Drago never played finer”: Evaluating the Public and Private Friendship between Domenico Dragonetti and Vincent Novello in the 1830s' Conservatorio di Musica 'Benedetto Marcello', Venice, 29/05/2024-29/05/2024. [Link] | |
2022 | Fiona M. Palmer (2022) Maynooth University Music Department Research Seminar ‘Unpacking the Maestro Myth: Bugs Bunny, Clerical Garb, and a Walrus Moustache…’ Maynooth University, 09/11/2022-09/12/2022. | |
2021 | Fiona M. Palmer (2021) Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference '‘The old custom of chance will no longer do; let us have intelligently taught conductors’: Contextualizing Conductor Training in Britain (1890s–1920s)' Online, 25/06/2021-26/06/2021. | |
2019 | Fiona M. Palmer (2019) Royal Musical Association 55th Annual Conference 'Collective Podium Power: Protecting British Conductors During and After World War I' Royal Northern College of Music and University of Manchester, 11/09/2019-13/09/2019. | |
2019 | Fiona M. Palmer (2019) 'Agency and Identity in Music', International Musicological Society Intercongressional Symposium Consolidating the Position of British Conductors in 1916: Issues of Identity and Influence in the Musical Conductors’ Association Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland, 07/07/2019-10/07/2019. | |
2019 | Fiona M. Palmer (2019) 17th Annual Plenary Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland ‘Consolidating the Position of British Conductors’: Issues of Identity and Influence in the Musical Conductors’ Association (1916)' Maynooth University, 28/06/2019-30/06/2019. | |
2018 | Fiona M. Palmer (2018) Inside, Outside, and in Between: Institutionalization in Music History. The Fifth Sibelius Academy Symposium in Music History ’Dan Godfrey Junior and Bournemouth’s Municipal Orchestra before 1914’ Helsinki, Finland, 06/06/2018-08/06/2018. | |
2018 | Fiona M. Palmer (2018) Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference ‘Defining the Conductor’s Job Description in Britain before 1914: Dan Godfrey Junior and Bournemouth’s Municipal Orchestra’ St Anne's College, University of Oxford, 21/06/2018-23/06/2018. | |
2017 | Fiona M. Palmer (2017) World War I and Music: 13th International Musicological Conference of the Croatian Musicological Society ‘Resisting Foreign Invasion: World War I and the Campaign for the British Conducting Profession’ Zagreb, Croatia, 24/10/2017-27/10/2017. | |
2017 | Fiona M. Palmer (2017) Royal Musical Association 53rd Annual Conference ‘Every musician (or rather soi-disant musician) … thinks he can conduct’: Reinterpreting Ideologies of Orchestral Conducting in 1870s Britain’ Liverpool University, 07/09/2017-09/09/2017. | |
2017 | Fiona M. Palmer (2017) Eleventh Biennial International Conference on Music in 19th-Century Britain 'Forging a Conducting Profile in Britain before World War I: Landon Ronald and the Birmingham Promenade Concerts (1905–14)' University of Birmingham, 28/06/2017-30/06/2017. | |
2016 | Fiona M. Palmer (2016) SMI Plenary Conference ‘Hundreds of people are unable to differentiate between a man who wags a stick and the artist who inspires and controls’: Concepts of Conducting in Britain in 1913’ St Patrick's College, DCU, 10/06/2016-12/06/2016. | |
2016 | Fiona M. Palmer (2016) Oxford Conducting Institute Conducting Conference ‘Hundreds of people are unable to differentiate between a man who wags a stick and the artist who inspires and controls’: Concepts of Conducting in Britain in 1913’ St Anne's College, Oxford Unversity, 24/06/2016-26/06/2016. | |
2016 | Fiona M. Palmer (2016) North American British Music Studies Association Biennial Conference ‘‘I am your leader, and you must follow me’: Sir Joseph Barnby as Conductor of the Royal Choral Society (1872–1896)’ Syracuse University, New York, 04/08/2016-06/08/2016. | |
2015 | (2015) Philharmonic Societies:Celebrating 175 Years of the Original Liverpool Sound Royal Liverpool Philharmonic: 175 Years of the Original Liverpool Sound Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, William Brown Library, Liverpool, . | |
2014 | (2014) 'Liverpool Philharmonic - Causes and Effects - Central Themes' CMPCP Workshop: Prof. T.K. Ramnarine University of London: Senate House, . | |
2013 | (2013) ‘Developing the Liverpool Philharmonic Society Orchestra in the mid-19th century' Performance Studies Network Second International Conference University of Cambridge, . | |
2013 | (2013) ‘I cannot do Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel with deputies’ Eighth Biennial International Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain Conference University of Cardiff, . | |
2012 | (2012) ‘Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885): Reinterpreting the Conducting Career of a Naturalised Englishman' Plenary Conference of the Society for Musicology Ireland Dundalk Institute of Technology, . | |
2012 | (2012) ‘Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885): Reinterpreting the Conducting Career of a Naturalised Englishman' Seventeenth Biennial International Conference on 19th-Century Music University of Edinburgh, . | |
2011 | (2011) ‘Choral Societies in England and nationalist Mobilization in Nineteenth Century Europe’ SPIN SPIN/De Singel Antwerp, . | |
2011 | (2011) ‘Conductors and Conducting in 19th-Century Britain: The Liverpool Philharmonic Society as Case Study La Spezia CAMEC Italy - La Spezia, . | |
2011 | (2011) ‘Infrastructures and Personnel: Case Studies in the Evolution of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society The Orchestra in Global Perspective Workshop III, AHRC Centre for Musical Performance Institute of Musical Research London, . | |
2011 | (2011) 'Music for the Masses' RCM Grove Forum Royal College of Music London, . | |
2010 | (2010) ‘”His Beat Is Clear and Decisive”: Max Bruch as Conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society' Musicology Research Seminar Series Liverpool Hope University, . | |
2010 | (2010) 'Orchestral Direction in the Nineteenth Century: Pioneers on the Podium' NUI Maynooth Music Department Research Seminar NUI Maynooth, . | |
2010 | (2010) Making an Orchestra Work: Perspectives from the Nineteenth Century Global Perspectives on the Orchestra: Workshop I: the Symphony Orchestra AHRC Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice, Institute of Musical Research, London Univ, . | |
2010 | (2010) His Beat Is Clear and Decisive”: Max Bruch as Conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society in the Fourth Biennial Conference of the North American British Musical Studies Association Des Moines, Iowa USA, . | |
2010 | (2010) Defining the Job Description: Case Studies in English Orchestral Conducting in the mid-1800s The Symphony Orchestra as Cultural Phenomenon Institute of Musical Research, University of London, . | |
2009 | (2009) Making it in the 19th-century Music Profession: The Contrasting Careers of Dragonetti...marketplace History Department Research Seminar Series NUI Maynooth, . | |
2009 | (2009) Finding Direction: Hierarchies in the Early Years of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society Joint Annual Conference of the Royal Musical Association and Society for Musicology Ireland RIAM, Dublin, . | |
2009 | (2009) Finding Direction: Hierarchies in the Early Years of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society 7th Biennial Conference on Music in 19th-Century Britain Bristol University, . | |
2007 | (2007) Vincent Novello’s Circle: Figures and Functions Music Department Research Seminar Series NUI Maynooth, . | |
2007 | (2007) A Home for the Phil: The Unveiling of Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall in 1849 SMI Annual Conference Waterford Institute of Technology, . | |
2007 | (2007) A Home for the Phil: The Unveiling of Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall in 1849 6th Biennial Conference on Music in 19th-Century Britain Birmingham University, . | |
2006 | (2006) Vincent Novello’s Circle: Figures and Functions Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies Queen's University Belfast, . | |
2005 | (2005) Patterns in Vincent Novello’s Editorial Output 1811–32: Quantity v. Quality? 5th Biennial International Conference on Music in 19th-Century Britain University of Nottingham, . | |
2005 | (2005) Vincent Novello and “This Extraordinary Genius”: Henry Purcell SMI Annual Conference University College Cork, . | |
2004 | (2004) Vincent and Mary Novello: Family Ties, Values and Quarrels SMI Annual Conference Queen's University Belfast, . |