by SRD » Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:14 am
I'm not so sure, at a time when many many people's only form of entertainment was to play a musical instrument there would have been a great call for music teachers of all sorts. It would have been a good career for even a moderately talented musician. And there's no reason why there shouldn't be 3,500 in any one year; if you consider a 40 year working life that's less than 100 MA's (in music) qualifying each year. With many of the purely music colleges opening in the 18th century as well as those traditional universities that had strong musical traditions, and such a demand for their services that doesn't seem too large a figure to me. And the 19th century was so very important in the explosion of 'Classical' music, googling 19th century composers brings up over 200 on wiki alone and those don't include those who were born, and wrote, in the 19th century that are considered 20th century composers, people like Elgar, Ethel Smyth, Delius, German, Vaughan Williams and countless foreign composers. I would think that a masters in music would have been as relatively commonplace as a masters in media studies is nowadays.
Currently investigating the Hillmans of Sussex.