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For the world of Mozart scholarship, the composer's so-called “Twelfth Mass” is a closed case. Despite its great popularity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so the argument goes, the work is clearly not by Mozart, but probably by Wenzel Müller; it is therefore consigned to K. Anh. 232 / C1.04. But for the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, Mozart's “Twelfth Mass” was – together with the Requiem – his most popular sacred work, and for the composer's biographer Edward Holmes it could rival Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte in nineteenth-century musical affections. The “Twelfth Mass” and Holmes’ commentary together have been important factors in Mozart reception throughout the Anglophone world, from the early nineteenth century to the present.

The reader is introduced to the problem of explaining the behaviour of ‘unethical consumers’ and others who evaded the rationing and price control through the case of the composer, singer, and actor Ivor Novello, before discussing the changing purposes of economic control and describing the different types of rationing and price control schemes. The unavoidable gaps and loopholes in these schemes that created opportunities for black market dealing are also highlighted. The final section examines the way in which officials calculated a fair share, a fair price, and a fair profit, and how official understanding of fair shares clashed with popular notions of distributive justice.

Hitchcock’s lost second film is represented by various stills where we can see how he carefully deglamorized his star Nita Naldi, who was a star from America. In his third film, The Lodger (1926), which made his reputation, Hitchcock carefully handles the queer matinee idol Ivor Novello, experimenting with ways of shooting him that emphasize his sex appeal and his strange way of moving. This film also features one of the first “Hitchcock blondes,” as played by an actress simply known as June. There is also a discussion of gayness in Hitchcock films and what it can mean to have a gay actor in a straight part and a straight actor in a gay part.

This chapter looks at Welsh composer Ivor Novello, whose seven Big Sing musicals, from 1935 to 1949, present an imposing body of work. His seven operettas are Glamorous Night (1935), Careless Rapture (1936), Crest Of the Wave (1937), The Dancing Years (1939), Arc De Triomphe (1943), Perchance To Dream (1945), and King's Rhapsody (1949). They could be described as both terrible and wonderful, vexed by boisterous storytelling yet protected by Novello's extraordinary gifts in melody and harmony. Glamorous Night initiated the rise of the type of musical genre by which Novello is known today. He wrote the scripts, composed the songs (mostly to Christopher Hassall's lyrics), played the leads, and generally supervised the entire production without actually directing. Yet Novello himself, though he played heroes in six of these titles, did not generally sing.

This chapter explores the meaning of the professional female voice through the experiences of three singers from the 1830s and ’40s: Adelaide Kemble, Clara Novello, and Marianne Lincoln. It continues the argument of Chapters 2 and 3 by exploring how contemporary divisions over the sound of femininity affected the ways singers chose to use their voices. Their letters and diaries show how they were caught between a desire to develop their professional technique and artistry, and an equally strong anxiety that, in doing so, they might contravene feminine norms expected by important sections of the public and even by family and friends. These case studies thus expose the ongoing tensions between the ideals of the professional singer and of femininity in British musical life, but they also indicate that, through complex, sometimes agonising negotiation, it was increasingly possible for these women to develop successful careers as professional female musical artists.

The book concludes with an account of Clara Novello’s performance at the opening of the Crystal Palace at its new site at Sydenham in June 1854. A major media event, the opening ceremony climaxed with Novello singing the national anthem to great acclaim both from the listening crowds and from the national press, who praised the power, technical skill, and emotionally expressive force of her rendition. This moment, when the voice of the British female artist seemed so central to the national consciousness, forms a point from which to review the book’s major themes. Ultimately it concludes that, although there were powerful forces at work seeking to constrict women’s voices, in this period and far beyond, Novello’s performance signals the emergence by mid-century of a new, more empowering way of voicing femininity that began, gradually, to contest the most fundamental assumptions of modern patriarchy.

In his best-received late film Gosford Park, Altman and his collaborators chose to incorporate preexisting songs written by real-life actor and singer Ivor Novello (played by Jeremy Northam). Novello and his songs fulfill several critical functions in the film. First, the songs illuminate several implicit and explicit oppositions within the film, including the divisions between upper and lower classes, as well as the blurred line between reality and film. Second, Novello’s songs provide a surfeit of narrative information crucial to the resolution of multiple storylines. Third, the structural location of the songs within the narrative suggests specific models for the work, the identification of which deepens the subtext of the film and the significance of the music. Last, the songs conspire with other elements (plot, characters, mise-en-scène) to complicate the film’s generic hybridity, which combines a traditional murder mystery with Indiewood’s reinvigorated British heritage film.