In the early 18th century, the most important works of Baroque chamber and orchestral music were still almost exclusively intended for the ears of aristocratic audiences. The princely courts had close to a monopoly on the enjoyment of art new music; churches were the only place where common people could listen to the works of great composers. However, the rising European bourgeoisie, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, increasingly challenged this aristocratic musical privilege from the end of the 17th century onwards.

The rapid spread of music printing made it possible to play music at home, among friends and family. At the same time, civic concert institutions sprouted up all over Europe. In 1678, the first bourgeois opera house in Germany was opened in Hamburg, the Oper am Gänsemarkt. In 1701, Georg Philipp Telemann founded a student music ensemble in Leipzig that organised public concerts under the name Collegium musicum; and in 1725, King Louis XV allowed the oboist of the royal chapel in the Tuileries Palace in Paris to organise a series for the general public, the Concerts spirituels.