The Musical Archeologist

In this episode of The Musical Archeologist, Craig Dabelstein returns to Hermann Eichborn's On the History of Instrumental Music to ask a different kind of question: not only what the book tells us, but what its sources leave out. Eichborn's world is full of town musicians, court trumpeters, guild players, military bandsmen, civic appointments, and official musical privileges. It is a fascinating history of music inside institutions — but it is also, almost entirely, a male and official world. This episode explores the people institutional music history often forgets: women, amateurs, domestic musicians, informal teachers, servants, children, street performers, and others whose musical lives did not always leave paperwork behind. The forgotten idea is simple but important: music history is not only made by the people institutions remember. It is also made by the people institutions forget. The Musical Archeologist: Forgotten Ideas from Music's Past Written and presented by Craig Dabelstein Music composed by Jeffrey A. Young This episode is based on ideas arising from Hermann Eichborn's On the History of Instrumental Music, translated by Craig Dabelstein and published by Maxime's Music. Buy the book: https://books.by/maximes-music Podcast webpage: https://craigdabelstein.com/podcast/

In this episode of The Musical Archeologist, Craig Dabelstein explores Hermann Eichborn's challenge to a familiar historical image: the medieval musician as a despised, wandering outcast. Eichborn argues that the truth was more complicated. Some travelling entertainers certainly lived on the margins of society, but skilled musicians could also be respected court servants, civic professionals, tutors, companions, and even trusted envoys. Behind the question is a larger forgotten idea: music itself was not necessarily despised, but a musician's status depended on where he belonged, whom he served, and whether society recognised his place. This episode asks how stereotypes about musicians are formed, why the line between artist and outsider has always been unstable, and whether modern musical life still carries traces of the same old tension. The Musical Archeologist: Forgotten Ideas from Music's Past Written and presented by Craig Dabelstein Music composed by Jeffrey A. Young This episode is based on ideas from Hermann Eichborn's On the History of Instrumental Music, translated by Craig Dabelstein and published by Maxime's Music. Buy the book: https://books.by/maximes-music Podcast webpage: https://craigdabelstein.com/podcast/

In this episode of The Musical Archeologist, Craig Dabelstein explores one of Hermann Eichborn's most wonderfully specific examples of musical regulation: the old wedding rules of Lübeck, where even music at a feast could be controlled by civic authority. At certain weddings, the "great ensemble" was permitted to play during the meal only once — during the roast course. It sounds comic, but behind the rule is a serious forgotten idea: music was not merely entertainment. It was a public display of rank, wealth, order, and social meaning. This episode asks why a city would regulate wedding music, what instruments and musicians represented in civic life, and how something as ordinary as a feast could reveal a whole society's anxieties about status and display. The Musical Archeologist: Forgotten Ideas from Music's Past Written and presented by Craig Dabelstein Music composed by Jeffrey A. Young This episode is based on ideas from Hermann Eichborn's On the History of Instrumental Music, translated by Craig Dabelstein and published by Maxime's Music. Buy the book: https://books.by/maximes-music Podcast webpage: https://craigdabelstein.com/podcast/

In this episode of The Musical Archeologist, Craig Dabelstein explores one of Hermann Eichborn's strangest and most revealing stories: a world in which playing the trumpet was not merely a musical act, but a matter of privilege, authority, and professional control. Eichborn tells of a dispute in Hanover where court trumpeters allegedly broke into a town musician's house, confiscated his trumpet, and even knocked out several of his teeth — all in the name of defending their professional rights. Behind the absurdity is a serious forgotten idea: musical instruments once carried legal, social, and ceremonial power. The trumpet was not just a brass tube. It could be a badge of rank, a signal of authority, and a protected professional privilege. This episode asks what happens when musical standards, professional identity, and social status become tangled together — and whether "protecting the art" can sometimes turn into musical policing. The Musical Archeologist: Forgotten Ideas from Music's Past Written and presented by Craig Dabelstein Music composed by Jeffrey A. Young This episode is based on ideas from Hermann Eichborn's On the History of Instrumental Music, translated by Craig Dabelstein and published by Maxime's Music. Buy the book: https://books.by/maximes-music Podcast webpage: https://craigdabelstein.com/podcast/

What happens when a critic is so overwhelmed by a pianist that he reaches for storms, devils, fireworks, and dancing skeletons? In this episode of The Musical Archeologist, Craig Dabelstein returns to Oscar Comettant's 1874 portrait of Francis Planté to explore a lost style of music criticism: extravagant, comic, passionate, and deeply attentive. Nineteenth-century critics may have written with glorious excess, but they were trying to describe what actually happened in the music. This episode reflects on criticism as a form of musical attention — not mere judgement, not polite publicity, but listening turned into language. Written and presented by Craig Dabelstein. Music composed by Jeffrey A. Young. Based on Oscar Comettant's Francis Planté: Portrait musical à la plume. Podcast webpage: https://craigdabelstein.com/podcast/ Buy the book: https://books.by/maximes-music Craig Dabelstein: https://craigdabelstein.com/ Maxime's Music: https://www.maximesmusic.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@maximes-music