The Sixteenth Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music (ICBM) was held at the beautiful Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Professor Thomas Hochradner and his effective team of assistants, approximately 250 participants could choose from papers and lecture-recitals that covered a wide spectrum of topics and methodologies. These included new research on notable composers, geographical influences upon musical genres and interdisciplinary approaches. The organizers also offered guided tours on one of the afternoons, which allowed participants to trace the music of the city, learn about the autographs vault of the Mozarteum, listen to the organs at the Metropolitan Church or explore the cathedral quarters (Domquartier).
Many panels contained papers pertaining to a specific composer. In line with my own area of study, I attended two insightful sessions on Handel-related topics. In the first of these, Fred Fehleisen (The Juilliard School / Mannes College The New School for Music, New York) took an ‘out-of-the-box’ approach to Schenkerian analysis, investigating how musical figures in ‘Ev’ry Valley Shall Be Exalted’ from Messiah might convey meaning on a multiplicity of levels when compared to larger structural aspects. Paul McMahon (Australian National University) addressed Handel's compositional demands on his tenors as the voice-type became increasingly essential in his musical output. Peter Holman (University of Leeds) discussed the Vauxhall Gardens long movement, an extended set of trackers connecting a harpsichord's action to an organ. With special reference to Handel, Holman helped clarify the device's role in expanding the performance repertoire at Vauxhall.
Among papers focused on Johann Sebastian Bach's life and works, a session devoted to his Well-Tempered Clavier opened with a fascinating paper by Yo Tomita (The Queen's University of Belfast) on Johann Christoph Altnickol, Bach's son-in-law and authorized copyist of his works. Tomita presented evidence suggesting that Altnikol's fair copy of the Well-Tempered Clavier was requested directly by Bach himself and remained in the composer's possession even after the copyist's departure from Leipzig in 1748. Ruth Tatlow (Musik- och teaterbiblioteket, Musikverket, Stockholm) engaged the topic of Lutheran philosophies of music, often associated with nature, situating it within a theological context. She revealed how perspectives regarding proportion, canon and the trias harmonica were used to construct music that might stand the test of time. In a session entitled ‘New Light on Bach's Copyists and Students’ Tatiana Shabalina (Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, St Petersburg) examined corrections found in Leipzig sources for the wedding cantata Vergnügte Pleißenstadt, bwv216, to trace Bach's evolving attitudes towards the parody process. Szymon Paczkowski (Uniwersytet Warszawski) discussed the importance of Count Rzewuski's music collection at the Podhorce palace; this Polish aristocrat hired Johann Philipp Kirnberger, one of J. S. Bach's most eminent pupils, as his harpsichord player in 1745. Michael Maul, Bernd Koska and Manuel Bärwald (Bach-Archiv Leipzig) reported on their respective findings within the context of the ‘Bachs Thomaner’ project. Maul introduced a fascinating primary source indicating that a student of Bach had carried out the Thomaskantor's primary duties for two years, Koska investigated the professional environment into which Bach's students settled, and Bärwald considered their roles in the reception of Italian opera in Leipzig.
Other German composers also received a fair amount of attention. During the session ‘Christoph Graupner and the Cantata at the Court of Hesse-Darmstadt’ Guido Erdmann (Königsbrunn) investigated the sacred dialogue cantatas of Graupner, while Ursula Kramer (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) endeavoured to reconstruct Darmstadt court performing practices through an analysis of manuscript parts. In another session devoted to Heinrich Schütz and Dresden, the composer's work environment was examined by Gregory Johnston (University of Toronto). He described the delicate balance between credit and debt that musicians at the Dresden court had to maintain following the economic instability brought on by the Thirty Years War. In the session ‘Telemann and Neumeister’ Jeanne R. Swack (University of Wisconsin, Madison) discussed Erdmann Neumeister's anti-Semitic writings. She examined the dissemination of an anti-Jewish Hamburg sermon from 1713, and speculated on the pastor's authorship of the ‘Juden’ entry in Zedler's Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon. Steven Zohn (Temple University) linked Telemann's Der getreue Music-Meister, the first German periodical focused entirely on music, with moral literature of the time. He posited that such a connection was forged by Telemann himself in the service of advancing German literary and musical languages.
The sessions ‘Aspects of Music and Baroque Germany’ and ‘Music in Middle and Northern Germany’ yielded plenty of insights as well. Barbara M. Reul (Luther College, University of Regina) critically examined Johann Friedrich Fasch's ‘Lebenslauf’ (1757), an autobiographical essay rich in historical and literary value. Janette Tilley (Lehman College, City University of New York) investigated secularization and its role in changing the pre-modern conception of the sacred Eros. Examining the concept of mystical love in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Germany, she evaluated its transformation within the context of deep cultural and religious crises.
French and British music also received their due. One session focused exclusively on Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Cathérine Cessac (Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles) shared exciting news of a recently authenticated Charpentier autograph of some Airs italiens à 3 voix, outlining the ways in which the autograph reveals new information regarding secular Roman influences upon Charpentier, including works by Giacomo Carissimi and Lelio Colista. Another panel, ‘Charpentier, Bach and Marais’, shed light on structural aspects of the creative process. Korre D. Foster (Austin Peay State University) examined the implications of silence in Charpentier's compositional design; rhetorical figures Charpentier marked in the Messe pour Monsieur Mauroy served as a case study for this exploration. Issues of performance practice featured prominently in a paper by Adrian Powney (Birmingham Conservatoire / Birmingham City University), who reviewed time signatures in approximately 550 works to gain a better understanding of Charpentier's distinction between ₵ and 2.
In a session devoted to Henry Purcell, Bruce Wood (Bangor University) tackled the role of revision in Purcell's compositional process, providing an overview of revision procedures across the composer's career. This led nicely into a paper by Alan Howard (Cambridge) exploring renaissance borrowing techniques in English Restoration music, as evidenced in the cases of Purcell and Orlando Gibbons. Finally, Alon Schab (University of Haifa) discussed the composer's preference for the minor mode, its connection to folk idioms and its important role in Purcell's late compositional style.
Suzanne Aspden (University of Oxford) sparked great excitement in the session ‘Viewpoints on Music in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England’. She explored Charles Burney's concept of ‘national music’, which encompassed both highly refined styles and those at a more primitive stage of development. Intersections of music and text played a major role in the session ‘Music during the English Restoration’. Investigating Louis Grabu's setting of John Dryden's Albion and Albanius, Bryan White (University of Leeds) called attention to difficulties in the libretto, which conformed neither to English precedents, nor to the librettos by Philippe Quinault that suited the Lullian operatic design Grabu had envisioned. Katherina Lindekens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) then carefully compared Albion and Albanius with Purcell's King Arthur. Focusing on aspects such as metre, diction and rhyme, she identified differences between recitative poetry and the spoken dialogue of ‘dramatick’ opera. Similar themes were considered, this time in reference to William Davenant and John Dryden, in a paper by Martin Adams (Trinity College Dublin).
Eighteenth-century French operatic topics were also well represented. I especially enjoyed the paper by Ana Stefanovic (University of Arts, Belgrade), who investigated literary and musical narrativity in the operas of Lully and Rameau. She examined these works on various levels, including topical, rhetorical and expressive. Raphaëlle Legrand (Université Paris-Sorbonne) revealed intersections of allegory and creativity in the operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau, specifically the ways in which female characters might allegorically represent the creative production of poetry and music. Anita Hardeman (Western Illinois University) considered the more abstract, yet powerful role of the character Venus, constructing a typology from depictions of the goddess in twenty-three prologues.
A number of sessions were devoted to Italian opera. In the session ‘Seicento Italian Opera’ Wendy Heller (Princeton University) gave a fascinating paper on Il favore degli dei (Parma, 1690), with a libretto by Aurelio Aureli and music by Bernardo Sabadini (lost). She explored how the opera's ‘Ovidian dramaturgy’ went against the grain of both the humanistic aesthetic of the Arcadian Academy and the classical ideals upon which the genre was founded. The session ‘Venetian opera’ included a memorable presentation by Carlo Bosi (Universität Mozarteum Salzburg), who explored how the participation of librettists in other forms of literature might have affected thematic and structural aspects of early Venetian opera. Other intersections of transnationalism and opera surfaced in two sessions pertaining to ‘Opera Crossing the Alps’. Of special interest was a paper by Michael Lee (The Queen's University of Belfast), who commented on translation as a dynamic of cultural exchange with reference to operas by Giovanni Battista Bassani and Carlo Pallavicino modified to suit Saxon taste.
Among papers on sacred topics, Catherine Gordon-Seifert (Providence College) considered the role that French sacred music played in mysticism and demonology, particularly Joseph Surin's Cantiques spirituels (1655). This paper sparked much discussion among the audience. Michela Berti and Emilie Corswarem (Université de Liège) explored aspects of cultural exchange between individual churches in Rome and the Catholic Church as an institution. Analysis of documents from these churches reveals a certain degree of musical autonomy that challenges the assumed uniformity of Roman liturgical practice.
Delegates were also treated to some wonderful music during the conference, including several lecture-recitals. The most exciting concert, however, was that given on the opening night by the ensemble Viaggio musicale, including Dorothee Oberlinger (recorder), Vittorio Ghielmi (viola da gamba), Luca Pianca (lute) and Florian Birsak (harpsichord). Also engaging was a concert of Austrian choral and instrumental music presented at the Mülln Parish Church the following evening, performed under the direction of conductor Albert Hartinger.
Overall, the 2014 ICBM conference – the largest to date – successfully promoted a stimulating environment of intellectual exchange between junior and senior scholars, not least during the well-attended conference dinner at the stunning Festung Hohensalzburg. This bodes well for the seventeenth ICBM, which will take place at the University of Canterbury in 2016.
