Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society
With memoirs and archives lacking , it is currently difficult to properly evaluate the contribution of foreign musicians to French music during the reign of Louis XVI . The same causes creating the same effects , it is impossible to measure the contribution of French musicians to the music of neighboring countries . What is certain is that exchange promoted the spread of a certain form of music . For the moment , this chapter is far from closed . Can we venture the hypothesis that their membership in Freemasonry enabled this group of musicians to be mutually enriched and to enjoy an interaction fuelled by different types of music ?
* Translator ’ s note : A number of names in this text are Gallicized , in keeping with the style used in the original French article “ Le cosmopolitisme musical à Paris à la fin du XVIII e siècle ”. Thus , an artist like the Italian Giovanni-Battista Viotti is referred to as Jean-Baptiste Viotti , Giovanni Giuseppe Cambini is referred to as Jean Joseph Cambini . The same goes for the engraver Jean-Georges Preisler ( also known as Johann-Georg Preisler ).
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