Sunny late-summer weather welcomed an international group of scholars to northern Germany as they gathered at the Universität Hamburg to attend the congress ‘Hamburg: A Metropolitan Region between the Early Modern Period and the Enlightenment (1500–1800)’. It is well worth the trip to visit Hamburg, the ‘free and Hanseatic’ city on the banks of the Elbe, home to such eighteenth-century composers as Reinhard Keiser, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

This multi-disciplinary congress was organized by Johann Anselm Steiger (Universität Hamburg, Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften, Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie) and Sandra Richter (Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Literaturwissenschaft, Abteilung Neuere Deutsche Literatur), with the assistance of Marc Föcking (Universität Hamburg, Institut für Romanistik) and Oliver Huck (Universität Hamburg, Musikwissenschaftliches Institut), and in collaboration with the Hamburger Netzwerk für Frühneuzeit-Forschung, the Hamburger Arbeitskreis für Regionalgeschichte and the Arbeitsstelle für Geschichte des Wissens und der Literatur. Participants heard papers – in German and English, the two official languages of the congress – covering a wide range of disciplines, including theology, the history of science, literature, theatre, opera, musical culture, the visual arts, architecture and political history. Judiciously scheduled coffee breaks afforded opportunities for refreshment and conversation between paper sessions, especially with participants in sessions other than one's own.

The opening session took place on the evening of 7 September in the Hauptkirche St Jacobi, whose own Hauptpastorin Pröpstin Kirsten Fehr extended words of greeting. Additional greetings were offered by Staatsrat Bernd Reinert (Behörde für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg) and Holger Fischer (Vizepräsident der Universität Hamburg). In an introduction to the congress Johann Anselm Steiger described the city of Hamburg as ‘a world in small’, quoting Pastor Balthasar Schupp (1650–1712), who served the Jacobikirche from 1649 to 1661, and as a microcosmic representation of the macrocosmos. Following these remarks Klaus Garber (Universität Osnabrück) delivered the opening lecture, ‘Hamburg – nicht nur ein Sonderfall der deutschen Geschichte. Eine Betrachtung zur Literatur der Frühen Neuzeit und ihrer geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen’ (Hamburg – Not Merely a Special Case in German History: A Perspective on Early Modern Literature and Its Historical Conditions). The paper presentations began in earnest on 8 September. A total of sixty-nine papers were organized into seven sessions, the most relevant to musicology being session 4 – Oper und musikalische Kultur (Opera and Musical Culture) – chaired by Oliver Huck and Konrad Küster (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg). Of the eleven papers in this session, eight were on music of the eighteenth century. Of these, four were about opera: Küster explored the connections between operatic and sacred music in the early years of Hamburg opera in ‘Was verbindet Oper und Kirche? Die Startphase des Hamburger Opernhauses’ (What Links Opera and Church? The Beginnings of the Hamburg Opera House); Gunilla Eschenbach (Deutsches Literatur Archiv, Marbach) discussed urban life and manners in ‘Darstellung und Funktion von Urbanität in der Hamburger Oper um 1700’ (The Representation and Function of Urban-ness in the Hamburg Opera around 1700); Laure Gauthier (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne) spoke about the development of Hamburg into an artistic and cultural metropolis in ‘Von der Hansestadt zur Kunstmetropole. Die Rolle der Oper am Gänsemarkt in den kulturellen Wandlungen Hamburgs (ca. 1670–1740)’ (From Hanseatic Town to Artistic Metropolis: The Role of the Gänsemarkt Opera in the Cultural Transformation of Hamburg (c1670–1740)); and Kornee van der Haven (Freie Universität Berlin) discussed ‘Aufgeklärte Sittenlehre in Hamburger Operntexten 1720–1738’ (Enlightened Ethics in Hamburg Opera Librettos, 1720–1738). I found it noteworthy – indeed, a bit odd – that all four papers about opera dealt with texts of works whose music does not survive.

The remaining four papers dealt with more diverse topics: the pastoral song as cultivated by Telemann and others in ‘“Die alte und die neue Liebe”: Das schäferliche Lied in der Hamburger Liedkultur von 1640 bis 1750’ (‘Old and New Loves’: The Shepherd's Song in Hamburg Song Culture from 1640 to 1750) by Katharina Hottmann (Universität Hamburg); music in the early modern theatre in Oliver Huck's ‘Musik im Schauspiel in Hamburg in der frühen Neuzeit’ (Music in the Hamburg Theatre in the Early Modern Period); a serenata compiled for the visit of the Russian Tsar in ‘Ein Pasticcio für das Zarenpaar. Reinhard Keisers Serenata “Auf! erscheinet, ihr fröhlichen Zeiten” (1716)’ (A Pasticcio for the Tsar and Tsarina: Reinhard Keiser's Serenata ‘Auf! erscheinet, ihr fröhlichen Zeiten’ (1716)) by Hansjörg Drauschke (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg); and hints of the Enlightenment in the occasional choral works by C. P. E. Bach in my paper (‘Representations of the City of Hamburg in the Occasional Choral Works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’, Jason B. Grant, The Packard Humanities Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Music of the seventeenth century was also represented in session 4 in a paper on the swearing of allegiance by Hamburg to Christian IV of Denmark by Arne Spohr (Wolfenbüttel) and in papers on Hieronymus Praetorius by Frederick K. Gable (Emeritus, University of California, Riverside) and Esther Criscuola de Laix (University of California, Berkeley). Two papers on opera and one on oratorio in the eighteenth century were given in session 7 by Birgit Kiupel (Hamburg), Arnd Beise (Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg) and Ute Poetzsch-Seban. In addition to the seven sessions, there were two plenary lectures, neither of which addressed eighteenth-century music: Prof. Dr Wladimir Gilmanov (Rossiyskiy gosudarstvennyy universitet imeni Immanuila Kanta, Kaliningrad) discussed Lessing's aesthetics in ‘Lessings ästhetische Hoffnung auf “allgemeines Wohl” und die “Hamburgische Dramaturgie”’ (Lessing's Aesthetic Hope for the ‘Common Good’ and ‘Hamburg Dramaturgy’); and Martin Mulsow (Universität Erfurt) discussed the development of the culture of facts (or classification of knowledge) among Hamburg's scholars in ‘Entwicklung einer Tatsachenkultur. Die Hamburger Gelehrten und ihre Praktiken 1650–1750’ (The Development of a Factual Culture: Hamburg Scholars and Their Practices, 1650–1750).

I spent most of the congress in my own session 4, but on the final day I had the opportunity to hear two excellent papers on non-musical eighteenth-century topics in session 2: Eve Rosenhaft (University of Liverpool) discussed ‘Consumption as Thrift: Early Life Insurance in Eighteenth-Century Hamburg’, which mentioned C. P. E. Bach's membership in various privately administered widows' funds to help provide for his wife Johanna Maria in the event of his death; and Paul S. Spalding (Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois) gave an exciting account of the power of the Hamburg newspapers to raise public support for the release of the Marquis de Lafayette during his European imprisonment in ‘Lafayette's Use of Hamburg's Worldwide Communications, in Prison and Exile (1792–99)’.

Overall, the presentations were of high quality. The participants, representing a wide range of disciplines and research interests, successfully shed light on the cultural flowering that Hamburg underwent during the early modern period and the Enlightenment. For a full list of the congress presentations, please visit the programme website at <http://www.theologie.uni-hamburg.de/ikd/steiger_pro_13.html>. A published volume of the congress proceedings is planned.