The Maltese phenomenon of philharmonic societies : L'Isle Adam Philharmonic Society : a case study

Abstract

The nineteenth and twentieth century witnessed the Maltese masses taking part in the making of popular culture. Many have attempted to analyse the real drive of this popular culture; some saw politics as the main drive, whilst other saw aesthetic artistic expressions as setting in motion the drive towards political assertion. We can only speculate about what drove this popular culture to take the shape it has taken; one fact is certain; the philharmonic societies enhanced this process. The history and analysis of these societies has been largely left to amateur writers who unfortunately, sometimes blinded by bias and parochial views, were hindered from revealing the true developments of these societies. This dissertation will attempt to analyse the functions of such societies; both internal and public, and how, if any, did they affect other cultural and social developments which were experienced by the Maltese Islands. Owing to the length imposed by the regulations governing the B.A. History dissertation of the University of Malta, this could not be a holistic study of the whole development of such societies and thus this study had to be limited to one case study. The society that will be analysed is the L'lsle Adam Philharmonic Society and hence the main texts used in the research came from the Society's archives. Although full access to the archives was granted for the purpose of this analysis, only a selection of these sources could be dealt with in detail. Therefore, I chose to focus on the three earliest statutes to be found in the archives, as well as some manuscripts from the archives of the Confraternity of St. Joseph, Rabat, a collection of scripts recently donated to the rare book section in the University of Malta library and a private array of leaflets and booklets which form part of a private collection.