Musical warriors: British military music and musicians during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Thesis

Military music was pervasive in Britain and Ireland during the French Wars but has received limited attention from historians. This thesis interprets martial music-making as a core military activity and an integral part of wider musical culture. A critical tool of communication and discipline, music sounded the alarm, aided recruitment, and governed soldiers’ routines and bodily movements. Officers invested heavily in military bands, regarding them as social amenities, sources of prestige, and essential for maintaining soldiers’ morale. Regiments competed and cooperated in a seller’s market for musical labour, engaging knowledgeable civilian performers and training a mass of novice instrumentalists through a cogent instructional programme.

Attention to music reveals the depth and reciprocity of interactions between the military and society. Regimental bands provided sought-after entertainment at myriad public events, staged free open-air concerts for socially diverse audiences, and amplified wartime expressions of patriotism. Military performers also promoted cultural dissemination and exchange, rehearsing eclectic repertoires and adopting melodies from other regiments, armies, and peoples.

Military mobilisation palpably shaped nineteenth-century musical culture. Volunteer and militia bands established in wartime continued playing together for decades after Waterloo while discharged regimental instrumentalists actively contributed to provincial and colonial musical life as teachers, performers, and retailers. The expansion of military music-making also encouraged the post-war spread of amateur wind and brass bands, which were often led by old soldiers and modelled on regimental lines. Ingrained in popular culture after two decades of conflict, martial music was widely emulated by political reformers with the involvement of musically trained ex-servicemen.

Military music, in sum, was an everyday and intrusive part of wartime life, a source of entertainment and opportunity, and a politically charged exponent of both patriotism and protest. The legacies of martial music-making, as this thesis argues, echoed far beyond the barrack gates.

Authors: O'Keeffe, EW

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-9gmoebyz9
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: army; military; popular politics; war and society; musicians; music
• Subjects: Music; History; History, Military