Introduction

Abstract

This study speaks to the current resurgence of interest in music and health, as well as the rich scholarly communities of historical and cultural musicology, music in nineteenth-century Britain, and the history of science and medicine. It offers a new perspective on the early history of music as therapy and also opens up new areas for exploring the philosophy of music, emotions, and wellbeing in nineteenth-century Britain. The introductory chapter situates the study in this interdisciplinary context, before considering the wider question of music and medicine, and the methodological challenges encountered. The links between music and medicine can be traced back to ancient times. While little empirical work on music’s therapeutic potential was carried out until the 1890s, discussion of the power of music, together with its important social and moral role, gave it an important place in the institutional structures of Victorian psychiatry.