This interesting book begins with a good question – ‘Wouldn't historians like music?’ (9) – pointing out that historians have usually avoided mentioning this artform in their scholarly studies of the ancien régime. But instead of discussing the most significant and best-known composers of the period (such as Lully, Charpentier, Rameau and Mozart), David Hennebelle focuses on numerous musicians who spent their daily life serving the most prestigious aristocratic households (those of the Guise, the Orléans, the Bourbon-Condé, the Noailles, the Conti and so on) whose legacies have been somewhat submerged by historical accounts. This book is therefore cross-disciplinary, and proposes – by exploring what was ordinary (that is, what remained unnoticed) rather than what was exceptional in the Parisian musical milieu – an illuminating social and cultural approach to the musical patronage of a highly refined society, whose members (not always learned musicians themselves) invested large amounts of money to maintain a handful of musicians (performers and/or composers) and even private orchestras (such as those of Pierre Crozat, the prince of Conti, and Le Riche de La Pouplinière) in order to display their wealth. Through many precise examples the author explains how this patronage became a genuine strategic tool to allow patrons to ascend the social hierarchy yet keep themselves somewhat detached from royal norms (as discussed in Part 1, ‘Le patronage musical de l'aristocratie: acteurs, formes et enjeux’ (The Musical Patronage of the Aristocracy: Actors, Forms and Stakes)). This protection of music and musicians was inscribed in particular forms of sociability, outstanding ambitions and social successes (Part 3, ‘Les musiciens au service de l'aristocratie’ (Musicians at the Service of the Aristocracy)), as well as new compositional and performing rules and procedures (Part 2, ‘L'aristocratie: moteur du progrès musical?’ (The Aristocracy: Driving Force of Musical Progress?)).

To write this work, the author gathered a large number of primary sources (printed and manuscript alike) – dedications, memoirs, periodicals, marriage settlements, estate inventories, account books, correspondence (particularly of the Mozart family) and so on – and scrutinized each of them to uncover the most minute details. Documents from the early eighteenth century are scarce, so it is not surprising that the period from the height of Lully's compositional career to c1720 is not covered as fully as the later part of the eighteenth century. The list of secondary sources is also impressive, but attentive readers will quickly notice that most of these seem to have been put in the bibliography without having being used in the book. For instance, Donald Fader's excellent doctoral dissertation, ‘Musical Thought and Patronage of the Italian Style at the Court of Philippe II, Duc d'Orléans (1674–1723)’ (Stanford University, 2000), which would have provided the author with a great number of documents and challenging thoughts, found its place in the bibliography (424) without ever being cited in the text. There are some other peculiarities in the bibliography: strangely enough, Rosalie McQuaide's PhD dissertation ‘The Crozat Concerts, 1720: A Study of Concert Life in Paris’ (New York University, 1978), which also appears in the bibliography (424), is quoted twice (13 and 214), each time with a reference to ‘VII’, but there is no page, chapter or appendix numbered either ‘VII’ or ‘vii’ in this work.

By looking at the footnotes, it may be thought that the author discovered hundreds of new archival documents. But most of these documents were already published and/or available in the secondary literature. Three cases will suffice to illustrate this unfortunate impression. First, on pages 351–356, Hennebelle discusses ‘Pierre Maréchal dit Paisible’, offering extensive quotations of the letters that Paisible sent to his mother, but without acknowledging that this correspondence was disclosed and partially studied by Michel Antoine (see ‘De quelques musiciens nommés Paisible’, Recherches sur la musique française classique 15 (1975), 96–104; Hennebelle does not cite this article). Second, when approaching the estate inventory of Jean-Marie Leclair (357), the author could not avoid referring to Lionel de La Laurencie's seminal study L'École française de violon (Paris: Delagrave, 1922–1924), since La Laurencie did not provide the catalogue number of the document (the same reasons justify Hennebelle's two footnotes on 369). If he had thought to look in Neal Zaslaw's doctoral dissertation, ‘Materials for the Life and Works of Jean-Marie Leclair L'aîné’ (Columbia University, 1970), which is ignored in the book under review, he would not have found the call numbers there either, but he would have found some very interesting information on the Count of Gramont's music ensemble. Third, while the author is nice enough to quote from two of my books (albeit with incorrect titles), he does not draw attention to my work when he refers to Charles-Hubert Gervais, giving the impression that he himself found Gervais's marriage settlement as well as all the other archival documents related to the musician. The list of the conveniently overlooked secondary material in the notes and in the bibliography could be much longer. It is, however, useful to point out at least two more missing references pertaining to private concerts: Herbert C. Turrentine, ‘The Prince de Conti: A Royal Patron of Music’, The Musical Quarterly 54/3 (1968), 309–315, and Maurice Barthélemy, Concerts privés à Paris pendant la Régence (Bourg-la-Reine: Zurfluh, 2008).

Coming back to David Hennebelle's very first question, historians may not be aware of recent musicological literature, but such a volume is not going to promote French scholarship favourably, tout court. This book presents a genuine paradox. On the one hand, it contains very interesting (but not always original) ideas, analyses and cross references. For instance, there are some notable ideas about the status, wages and housing of all these neglected musicians (265–303); interesting analyses of topics such as the dedications found in some printed scores (22–29, 133–136) and of the performance contexts of aristocratic orchestras and the issue of private versus public concerts (86–92, 137–157); and cross references to subjects like aristocratic patronage and its political implications. But on the other hand, it shows a lack of intellectual integrity and scholarly rigour.