The symposium Music and Power in the Baroque Era took place in Lucca's Complesso Monumentale di San Micheletto. The organizing committee – Roberto Illiano and Fulvia Morabito (both Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini), Rudolf Rasch (Universiteit Utrecht) and Luca Lévi Sala (Yale University; now New York University) – had gathered a wide range of contributions concerning the interaction between music production, music creation and power between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The event began with a session chaired by Reinhard Strohm that reflected on the political, cultural and ideological uses of music in European courts in relation to the great transformations that affected the continent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some papers focused on melodrama, in which the sumptuousness of the scenography, the talent of the artists involved and the choice of topics all served to celebrate sovereign power. Helen Coffey (The Open University, Milton Keynes) presented a paper on the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg and the relationship established with Venice by Ernst August, Elector of Hanover, at the end of the seventeenth century. Ernst August's enthusiasm for Italian opera enabled the royal family to patronize theatre performances in both Italy and Germany and thereby to affirm their status as political leaders and patrons of music. During the eighteenth century Italian opera became a way to express the political power of one of the most famous courts of Europe, that of Russia. Anna Giust (Pordenone) spoke about the history of importing Italian opera into that country, which started around 1730. The real golden age of Italian music in Russia came with the reign of the tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna and continued with the famous Catherine II, who loved to surround herself with Italian musicians, among them Galuppi, Cimarosa and Paisiello. Even in Habsburg Milan, the Austrian government organized musical performances of Italian genres such as cantate and feste teatrali to solemnize dynastic events following the model in use in Vienna, as Alessandra Palidda (Cardiff University) explained in her paper. The session ended with Cheryll Duncan (Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester), who focused on the royal licence as a significant channel for patronage under George II and as a primary form of music copyright protection.

Three papers were dedicated to music at the court of Louis XIV. In the court of the Sun King, music and visual arts were used to celebrate the importance of the monarch himself. With the help of his ministers and court composers, Louis XIV also used music as a tool for political gain. Jean Duron (Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles) reconstructed the strategies used by Louis XIV to create a new music that was intended to reflect the power of the sovereign. The theatre was also a means of musico-cultural propaganda for the king, and the tragédie lyrique was the musical emblem of this magnificence. Antonia L. Banducci (University of Denver) focused on the foundation of the Académie Royale de Musique and the relationship between Lully and Quinault, while Małgorzata Lisecka (Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń, Poland) proposed an analysis of the system of allegories used in the Phaéton (1683) of Quinault and Lully.

Dynastic events were intended as ceremonies for each royal family to assert its own political power. The conference dedicated a session to ‘Occasional and Celebrative Music’, chaired by Rudolph Rasch, with most of the papers devoted to the famous Medici family. Alex Robinson (Université Paris-Sorbonne) discussed the royal entry of Maria de’ Medici into Avignon in 1600 through the description made by André Valladier. This manuscript contains some interesting information about the music of this event, but has been not sufficiently considered by musicology until now. Michael Klaper (Institut für Musikwissenschaft Weimar-Jena) explained the mechanisms of conception, reception and dissemination of opera at the Medici court through the figure of Francesco Cavalli. In 1654 Cavalli composed his Hipermestra for the Medici court and for the nascent theatre la Pergola, but it was only performed for the first time in 1658. Klaper has conducted a careful reading of archival documents, letters and dispatches between Cavalli and the Medici; by comparing these sources with the libretto, the scores and the official chronicles he has been able to shed light both on the complex gestation of Hipermestra and on the real relationship between the composer and the famous family. Adriana De Feo (Salzburg) dealt with Giovanni Andrea Moniglia, librettist of Cavalli's Hipermestra and poet at the Medici court. Her analysis of some of Moniglia's librettos has shown how his eulogistic dramatic production mirrored the cultural policy of the Medici court. The session ended with the contribution of Simone Ciolfi (Saint Mary's College, Rome and Notre Dame, Indiana) on the music written for graduation ceremonies in Rome at the end of the sixteenth century.

Two sessions were dedicated to the topic of ‘Music and Patronage’. The first, dealing with the social status of composers and musicians, was introduced by keynote speaker Rudolf Rasch (Universiteit Utrecht). Rasch explained why, during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, composers usually accompanied publications of their music with a dedication to a patron. Such a dedication served to establish a position of importance for the published work and therefore for the composer within his social and political environment. Dedicatees included royalty, nobility, clergy, institutions, bourgeoisie and friends. Rasch focused on the dedications found in the publications of five Italian ‘baroque’ composers: Corelli, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Geminiani and Locatelli.

The careers of eighteenth-century German musicians as conveyed through autobiographical documents were the topic of Benedetta Saglietti's paper (Università di Torino), while the career of the castrato Giovanni Antonio Cavagna and his relations with the house Nemours-Colonna were studied by Mariateresa Dellaborra (Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Nicolini, Piacenza). Guido Viverit (Padua) examined the relationship between Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) and the European aristocracy. He demonstrated the part Tartini played in forming new generations of violinists who went on to assume important roles in some European court orchestras or were employed as composers or performers by private patrons. Lorenzo Ancillotti (Université Paris-Sorbonne) discussed musical and cultural activities at the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, an institution that assigned a large part of its own resources to the arts, creating a line of quality musicians. Richard Erkens (Deutsches Historisches Institut Rom) considered the figure of the impresario by examining the activity of Giuseppe Polvini Faliconti (1682–1741). Engaged for opera production in Rome in 1719, Falinconti played a prominent role on the theatrical scene in Rome for more than twenty years. He worked for the famous Teatro Capranica, the Teatro Argentina and Teatro Tordinona. Erkens also provided a clearer view of the environment of opera-making, and all its obstacles and opportunities. Maria Carla De Giorgi (Università del Salento) spoke about female composers within Italy and the countries beyond the Alps who were protagonists on the cultural scene in eighteenth-century Europe. Through their musical writings, these composers proposed new ideals of power, bringing onto the stage alternative patterns of female regency, dictated by a clear will to break away from the dominant model of Metastasio's operas. These figures were strongly influenced by the aesthetic ideals of the Accademia dell'Arcadia, which allowed the female role to advance on both political and cultural levels.

The second session devoted to ‘Music and Patronage’ focused on patrons and noble families. Naomi Matsumoto (Goldsmiths College, University of London) highlighted the contribution of the Marquis Pio Enea degli Obizzi (1592–1674) to the early history of opera, while Naomi J. Barker (The Open University, Milton Keynes) interpreted the emblems and images printed in Frescobaldi's Primo libro d'arie musicali as evidence of patronal politics. Jana Franková (Institut de Recherche en Musicologie, Paris) focused on Wenzl Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg (1711–1794), a prominent figure in Austrian diplomacy. A study of the Kaunitz family archive in Brno, in the Czech Republic, has enabled her to reconstruct the Grand Tour that Kaunitz undertook from 1732 to 1734. Kateryna Ielysieieva (Kiev College of Culture and Art) spoke about the influence of Alexey Razumovsky on musical life at the court of Russian tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna; many excellent German, Italian and French musicians worked under his management. She then concentrated on the composer Francesco Araya (1709–between 1762 and 1770), who had worked previously at the court of tsarina Anna Ioanovna, bringing with him a troupe of actors and singers who began staging performances of grand opera. David Mingozzi (Genoa) dealt with one of the most influential and wealthy Genoese patrician families, the Brignole-Sale, which in 1783 had begun a rich period of musical patronage. Olga Jesurum (Rome) considered the sojourn in Rome of architect and set designer Francesco Galli Bibiena (1659–1739). She showed how styles of set design changed in eighteenth-century Rome, where the popularity of public theatre clashed with the consolidated power of the ecclesiastical state and the noble families, owners of private theatres.

‘Music, Propaganda and Politics’ was introduced by the second keynote speaker, Reinhard Strohm (University of Oxford), who spoke on the subject of emblems and on the problems associated with rulership in baroque opera. Strohm detailed how researchers into early opera often want to interpret signs and emblems of power along political lines. But, as he stressed, in attempting to interpret such signs and allegories in early art, we need to understand the expectations of the contemporary audiences. Allegories and metaphors present in baroque opera have to be analysed in their historical context so that the implicit political message can be properly understood and not underestimated or de-historicized. The session continued with a talk by Ben Byram-Wigfield (The Open University, Milton Keynes) about the opera company of the Duke of Mantua, who attempted to use opera as a means of political persuasion. Robert G. Rawson (Canterbury Christ Church University) offered both a musical and a symbolic analysis of several works preserved in the palace at Kroměříž in Moravia. He spoke about Alessandro Poglietti, imperial organist in Vienna in the second half of the seventeenth century, and focused on the motet Ad matrem venite o gentes imbelles, sent from the composer to the prince-bishop Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorno. Rawson explained how this motet represented a musical parallel to the military recruitment posters sent around the Austrian Empire to enlist soldiers as Vienna was being besieged by the Ottoman Empire in 1683. Diana Blichmann (Rome) spoke of the use of David Perez's Alessandro nell'Indie as an instrument of national political propaganda at the Portuguese court; the opera was used to inaugurate the Teatro do Tejo in Lisbon in 1755. Valentina Anzani (Università di Bologna) illustrated the relationship between the Palatine Elector Johann Wilhelm (1690–1716) and his musicians, who were often charged with diplomatic activities. The session ended with Bruce P. Gleason (University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota) offering his paper ‘European Cavalry and Court Kettledrummers and Trumpeters: 1600–1750’.

The last session of the conference addressed ‘Music and Clerical Power’. Chiara Pelliccia (Deutsches Historisches Institut Rom) dealt with the Christmas cantatas written for the apostolic palace, re-reading their librettos with an emphasis on the political role of this ‘court’ repertory. David Lee (University of Glasgow) explored the theological and cultural values of the act of composition in German Lutheran culture. Elena Abbado (Università di Firenze) presented her work on oratory in Florence during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as seen through the documents of the Sant'Uffizio. As an ecclesiastical court, the Sant'Uffizio preserved a collection of sources that are important for any reconstruction of Florentine cultural life. The paper also provided an opportunity for general reflection on the presence and activities of the Sant'Uffizio in cultural events of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Finally, my paper (Angela Fiore, Université de Fribourg) reconstructed the ceremonial rites dedicated to the Eucharistic cult in Naples: Corpus Christi represented one of the biggest moments of public performance and hierarchical organization for all the authorities and institutions involved. Moreover, the richness of the liturgical vestments and the use of sumptuous and impressive sound architecture contributed to the symbolic construction of power.

The miscellany of topics presented at this international conference provided three days rich in debates and inspiring discussions. Selected papers will be published by Brepols in the collection ‘Music and Power in the Baroque Era’, edited by Rudolf Rasch as part of the series Music, Criticism and Politics (general editor: Luca Lévi Sala).