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The Musical Standard: A Newspaper for Musicians, Professional and Amateur

(London, 1871-1893)

RIPM Preservation Series: European and North American Music Periodicals (2017)

Publishers: George Carr and Company, 1871-1872; Reeves and Turner, 1872-1874; William Reeves, 1875-1893

Printers: William Bowden, 1871-1878; Thomas Danks, 1872; Bowden, Hudson and Company, 1879-1893

Editors: T. L. Southgate, 1871-1873; John Crowdy, 1873-1876; John Broadhouse, 1876-. Periodicity: Weekly

The Musical Standard was a long-lived and bibliographically-complicated journal. While the First Series has been treated in the RIPM Retrospective Index with Full Text, this Preservation Series publication concerns series two (also called the New Series, 1871-1878), three (1879-1880), and four (1881-1893); a fifth and sixth series are forthcoming in the Preservation Series. (For more information, see Diana Snigurowicz, Introduction to The Musical Standard (First Series, 1862-1871), fn 1.)

The second series, under the editorship of T. L. Southgate, begins an expansion of topics with the editor's desire “to obtain many new subscribers.” (No. 353, 6 May 1871: 1). The fourth series is declared with the appointment of E. H. Turpin as editor who futher commits the journal to “the development of the higher interests of music.” (no. 857, 1 January 1881: 8). As noted by Leanne Langley, "Apart from its value as a documentary source - the obituaries, for example, are rich and full, and include figures of local musical prominence such as Dr Henry Watson of Manchester - the [MusicalStandard is important for having developed the audience for music books, issued in turn by the journal's publisher William Reeves."

Leanne Langley, "Music" in Victorian Periodicals and Victorian Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995): 99-126, at 120.

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