Warsaw, University of Warsaw; Institute of Musicology, 6-7 May 2016
Music Migrations in the Early Modern Age: Centres and Peripheries – People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Influence
International Musicological Conference within the HERA project Music Migrations in the Early Modern Age: The Meeting of the European East, West and South (MusMig)
Migration of musicians and transmission of repertoire across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries contributed to the emergence of a network of music and cultural connections, in which major European centres of music life were linked to less well researched and mostly smaller centres situated at some distance.
In order to investigate the transmission of music in the context of the evolving styles, performance practices, instruments, forms of transmission, music education, music-related institutions and forms of music life and their adaptation in various milieus, it is vital not only to establish how peripheries were linked to the centres, but also how particular peripheral centres were linked to each other.
It is our objective to investigate the directions of migration and repertoire transmission, the routes along which musicians travelled and music was disseminated between the East, the West and the South of Europe, as well as about how the routes and directions changed and the factors that favoured or inhibited the exchange of musicians and music. We intend to find out which centres and in what period functioned as hubs of music life and which were peripheral, although each of them possessed an originality of its own. Among the issues related to the spreading of repertoire and knowledge about music, we consider their transformation through transmission and adaptation to be an important development which led to the emergence of the universally acknowledged classical style in music.
In summary of the research conducted within the framework of the MusMig project, it is our intention to address the fundamental question concerning the significance of the encounters between the East, the West and the South of Europe for music culture, both broadly defined and local in the places where the encounters occurred.
Concert At the Polish Royal Court in the 17th Century, May 6, 2016
