Oops (was: Re: connectivity issues)

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

--------

Don Olivier writes:
| > For a good part of
| > 18th century mailing of newspapers and periodicals was heavily
| > subsidized ...
|
| 19th century, of course.  The USPO didn't have much interesting history
| in the 18th. :-(

But in Europe, 18th is correct. An interesting bit of musical history
that  I've  seen  described  several  places:  Georg F.  Telemann was
apparently the first composer to realize  that  the  European  postal
system  had  a  potential new use.  He set up the first known monthly
music subscription service.  Every month,  subscribers  would  get  a
package  of  music, all newly composed by Herr Telemann, and designed
to be playable on a wide variety of instruments.  Most of  the  music
was aimed at highly-proficient amateurs.  The subscribers usually led
a local club of musicians who would gather to play through Telamann's
latest  works.   One  of  the  spinoffs was a lot of Telemann concert
series. The series was quite successful, and helped make Telemann one
of the most successful composers of the time, the early 1700's.

Part of the explanation is that he was inspired by the fact that  the
news  was  starting to be spread routinely by mail.  He didn't invent
the idea of a subscription service; he just applied it  to  something
other than text.

I don't recall reading that he used any sort of  "publication"  rate.
It wouldn't have made much sense to use anything but first-class mail
for such material. Unlike newspapers and other periodicals, his music
wasn't  considered  "throwaway".   It  went into everyone's permanent
music archives. So it was on good paper and well packaged, so that it
wouldn't be damaged in transit.

He apparently had quite a number of subscribers in the Americas. They
got  the music several months late, of course, but that wouldn't have
mattered much.

-
Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with
"subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" on the first line of the
message body to discuss-request at blu.org (Subject line is ignored).