Organized by three institutions, two Italian and one French, this conference was an international endeavour. In their short welcome note and introduction the members of the scholarly committee – Roberto Illiano, Fulvia Morabito and Massimiliano Sala (all from the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca), Galliano Ciliberti (Conservatorio Nino Rota, Monopoli), and Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier and Jorge Morales (both Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) – explained that the event was part of several ongoing projects and stressed its interdisciplinary character.

The fifteen contributions to the online conference were arranged in five sessions of three papers, spread over two days and interspersed with three keynote addresses. Almost all participants were also speakers, and through the diversity of languages involved the delegates were taken on a lively tour through Europe: talks were in Italian, French, Spanish and English, reflecting the geographical areas covered in the papers. A carefully prepared booklet, disseminated before the event, offered all the abstracts – giving one the opportunity to familiarize oneself with the papers, especially those in a language that one has not fully mastered. All the same, it was not evident what the cover picture – Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin – had to do with the funerary theme of the conference (apart from depicting a death).

The opening session was entitled ‘Urban Space, Publicity and the Political Instrumentalisation of Death’. Its first two papers, in rather fast Italian, looked at early-modern Italian examples of these three topics. Maria Cristina Paciello (Liceo Torquato Tasso, Rome) discussed the commemoration of aristocratic funerals in seventeenth-century Rome, in her paper ‘“. . . scudi 30 e baiocchi 20 alli Musici per le Esequie”: funerali e luoghi simbolici a Roma nel XVII secolo’ (‘Thirty scudi and twenty baiocchi to the musicians for the exequies’: Funerals and Their Symbolism in Seventeenth-Century Rome). Paying special attention to the obsequies of members of the minor aristocracy, she used sources such as accounting books to recreate and analyse these events. Paciello showed helpful slides to illustrate her argument that those events made much use of the city space, with meticulously planned processional routes that were full of references to the deceased. Some visual markers (such as arrows as the text progressed) would have made the slides even more illustrative. Matteo Marni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan) moved slightly forward in time and to the north of Italy. He spoke about the numerous elaborate aristocratic funerals, with their grand processions and lengthy services, all enriched by music, held in eighteenth-century Milan. His paper aimed at presenting an intriguing snapshot of a culture that was cut short, especially by political changes. A well-prepared presentation suffered somewhat from very full slides, and the discussion of music could have been more prominent.

The third paper of the session, by Nathanaël Eskenazy (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3), took the audience to France, discussing the music that was performed at ceremonies held by the restored Bourbon monarchy at St Denis to commemorate Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who are buried in the basilica. Eskenazy moved beyond Cherubini’s well-known 1817 Requiem and suggested that the music at these events was intended to re-sacralize the figure of the (restored) king, for instance by using the ancient practice of fauxbourdon, establishing continuity with the pre-Revolution monarchy. The paper moved beyond music to consider other sonic experiences, such as bells and the sounds of the crowd outside. As Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier, who chaired this session, pointed out, these occasions made use of all the senses. The paper stimulated a long discussion. Claudio Cardani (Università di Pavia–Cremona) asked a pertinent question about the use of the organ, as many instruments had been destroyed during the Revolution, to which Eskenazy replied that he could indeed not find much information on that topic. Asked about the contrast between the ‘corps du roi’ and the ‘corps de la nation’ (that is, the contrast between the union of the king’s physical and political body, and the embodied concept of the nation), Eskenazy answered that these ceremonies aimed at reconstituting the ‘corps du roi’ that had been dismembered, as it were, in the Revolution.

The session concluded with the first keynote address. Galliano Ciliberti took his audience back to Italy, speaking clearly and at manageable speed about ‘La musica nei riti funebri barocchi romani: emozioni, immagini e potere’ (Music in Baroque Roman Funerary Rites: Emotions, Imagery and Power). Supported by a good array of illustrations, he discussed the surviving records of princely and papal funerals, as well as commemorative services for foreign royalty and aristocrats from other parts of Italy. Ciliberti argued that these grand ceremonies were intended to impress the populace, who were in fact expected to participate in them. In this sense, the elaborate performances involved in the funeral rites served as strong statements of power. Although in the context of early-modern history such an observation may not be anything new, it was good that attention was drawn to the often-overlooked funeral culture of baroque Rome.

The afternoon opened with a session on the topic ‘Musical Repertoires and Places of Sound as a Representation of Death’. Unfortunately, Marta Marullo (Conservatorio Licinio Refice, Frosinone) could not be present, and her paper on the Totum Defunctorum Officium of Giovanni Bacilieri had to be cancelled. According to her abstract, she was going to argue that Bacilieri’s music for the office of the dead, written in Ferrara and published in 1619, is one of the most significant works of polyphonic funeral music of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. A discussion of this work would have been a valuable addition to the conference, as the Totum Defunctorum Officium covered all possible ceremonies and services associated with the rites of passing and commemoration, including special pieces for the funerals of infants – thus being a work of almost encyclopaedic character.

In consequence, the first paper of the afternoon was by Pasquale Imbrenda (independent scholar, Rome), who focused on the ‘Eternal City’, with his findings on ‘La “Morte Nera” nella Roma Alessandrina. Aspetti devozionali e organizzazione musicale durante la peste romana del 1656/57: Lelio Colista ed i Vespri per la ristabilita Cappella Papale per la festività della Natività della Madonna a Santa Maria del Popolo’ (The ‘Black Death’ in Alexandrine Rome. Devotional Aspects and Musical Organization during the Roman Plague of 1656–1657: Lelio Colista and the Vespers for the Re-established Papal Chapel for the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin at Santa Maria del Popolo). Imbrenda presented much text and data on well-filled slides. The starting-point of his rapid Italian talk was the vespers setting written by Lelio Colista for the celebrations of the Virgin Mary, to be performed by the Papal Chapel that Alexander VII had relocated to Santa Maria del Popolo in 1657. (The pope had moved because of the plague in the city.) Imbrenda also discussed music performed in the 1660s. While the paper was not directly linked to music at funerary rites, its background of the Black Death – leading to the creation of elaborate papal music in a kind of church in exile – was an interesting contribution to this conference.

In my own paper, ‘Thomas Tudway’s Burial Service for the Funeral of the Marquess of Blandford, 1703’, I (Matthias Range, University of Oxford) discussed the origins, use and later history of Tudway’s setting of the Funeral Sentences, the seven portions of text prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer to be sung or read. While the central part of Tudway’s setting had been written earlier, for the funeral of a Cambridge professor, he completed the service for the funeral of Blandford, the only son of the First Duke of Marlborough. Tudway’s settings were never that widely circulated, and were largely forgotten after the eighteenth century. Up to the end of that century, however, at least the first part of his setting enjoyed some continued use. I suggested that the music of the ‘theatre of death’ could serve to commemorate a funeral and the deceased as much as, if not more than, a monument. Antonio Chemotti (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Alamire Foundation; Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque Royale (Royal Library of Belgium)) asked whether there were any recurring memorial services on the anniversary of the death; I explained that the Church of England, at least in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, did not have any liturgy of that kind.

The first day finished with the second keynote address: Jorge Morales returned to the continent and spoke about ‘La musique perdue des funérailles de la princesse Isabelle d’Este-Savoie (1626): contexte culturel et mise en scène de la mort à la cour de Modène’ (The Lost Music of the Funeral of Princess Isabelle d’Este-Savoie (1626): Cultural Context and mise-en-scène of the Death at the Court of Modena). Isabelle was the daughter of Charles-Emmanuel I of Savoy and the wife of Alphonse III of Este. When she died in 1626, during the preparations for her son’s wedding, a specially written musical entertainment by Sigismondo D’India was cancelled, and in its place he provided a mass for her funeral in Turin. Morales was able to list various details of the appearance of the church, but the music has not survived. In the context of the princess’s death he referred to funeral services in absentia corporis, introducing an important concept: funerals held without the corpse being present, or basically memorial services, which could take place in various locations. Highlighting the fact that public opinion was becoming increasingly important, he referred to a ‘transformation publique de la ritualisation funèbre’ (public transformation of funerary ritualization). In the following discussion Morales suggested the reason why the mass had not survived was that it was too out of the ordinary to be useful for other occasions. In response to a further question, he clarified that the masses written to commemorate the princess would have been ‘normal’ masses, as opposed to requiem masses, and Ciliberti helpfully explained that requiem masses were not used in Italy at the time.

The second day opened with a session on ‘The Musical Rhetoric of Death and Interfaith Space’. The title turned out to be slightly misleading, as the papers at best looked at the interplay of different Christian denominations, but not at any ‘interfaith’ components. First was Antonio Chemotti, whose topic was ‘Music in the Italian Vernacular for Elite Funerals’. His well-prepared slide presentation made it easy to follow the paper. Focusing on Florence, and on funerals there for members of its youth confraternities, Chemotti discussed the little-known incorporation of vernacular music into the post-Tridentine Latin liturgical funeral rites. As he explained, these Italian canzoni, or madrigals, were akin to funeral sermons in that they referred to the individual deceased rather than to a generic death and dying. Only their texts have survived, but Chemotti could helpfully point to Marco da Gagliano’s Officium defunctorum (Venice, 1607), which similarly includes vernacular music for various parts of funeral ceremonies. In the ensuing discussion he further explained that funeral music is often understood as addressing the threat of judgment and the afterlife, whereas the incorporation of vernacular music highlights that it could, as in the Protestant tradition, also be about consoling those left behind. All the same, Chemotti emphasized that more research will be needed to determine whether this practice went beyond Florence.

The following paper, by Isabelle His (Université de Poitiers) focused on France: ‘Autour de l’ “Aer funebre sur la mort lamentable de tres-vertueux, tres-illustre & tres-invincible prince Loys de Bourbon, prince de Conde” d’Ubert Philippe de Villiers (1569)’ (Concerning the ‘Funerary Air on the Lamentable Death of the Very Virtuous, Very Illustrious and Very Invincible Prince Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé’ by Ubert Philippe de Villiers (1569)). By looking at de Villiers’s 1569 publication to commemorate his patron, who was one of the leaders of the Protestant cause in France, His presented a very intriguing, little-known case: the posthumous commemoration of a Protestant hero in vocal music. She also discussed the music itself and had the distinction of being the first speaker to offer a music example, which helped to emphasize her observation that the ‘dialogues’ were clearly meant to be sung unaccompanied.

In the final paper of the session, Eva Jarošová (Univerzita Karlova, Prague) explained to conference attendees ‘How to Be Macabre Without Being Macabre: Transi and the Substitution of Macabre Symbols in Early Modern Funerary Sculpture’. With much reference to Erwin Panovsky’s work, she provided an introduction to the little-known form of ‘transi’– monuments that show a decomposing corpse – concentrating on case studies of the funerary monuments erected in Prague between 1500 and 1650. A visually appealing slide presentation showed many examples and suffered merely from a significant number of typos. The paper was certainly very stimulating in presenting so many details on funerary art. Whereas it contributed nothing to the discussion of music at noble funerals, it provided some overall cultural context for the ‘musical rhetoric of death’ mentioned in the session title.

The second morning session looked at the topic of ‘The Memory of Death, Musical Institutions and Liturgical Influences across Europe’. It opened with Claudio Cardani, who presented on ‘Normativity and Exception: Musical Organization and Role of the Cappella Musicale del Duomo di Milano in the Funeral Ceremonies of Some Notable Milanese between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century’. This paper presented a neat companion piece to Marni’s paper on aristocratic funerals in Milan. Cardani explained that cathedral regulations forbade the use of any instruments at funerals but showed that, even so, they were used in several later funerals, the earliest evidence dating from 1778. The relatively short paper allowed for a good discussion afterwards. Wolfgang Marx (University College Dublin), who was chairing the session, asked whether there may have been more flexibility in this respect outside Lent, but Cardani opined that the wishes of a powerful family were more important than such liturgical considerations.

Biancamaria Brumana (Università di Perugia) focused on Germany, with her paper on royal funerals in the Age of Restoration, looking at Francesco Morlacchi’s Requiem Mass for the 1827 funeral of Friedrich August III/I, the last Elector and first King of Saxony. Noting that Morlacchi also composed much music for other occasions at the Dresden court, Brumana argued that his requiem for the funeral service moved away from the more generically liturgical works of the eighteenth century and towards a more dramatically conceived expression of grief. She exemplified this with a short video from a live performance of the piece – a welcome moment of music. Her considerations of the work’s genesis, its performance and – no pun intended – its afterlife showcased an interesting example of the changing character of music performed at noble funerals.

Whereas all previous papers had focused heavily on vocal music, Reinhard Wilczek (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg) drew attention to the instrumental music associated with these events, in his paper ‘How Mourning Becomes Heroic – Beethoven’s Funeral Marches’. He was not himself present, but had sent a video recording as well as a handout (this was the only presentation to have the latter). Noting that the funeral march as a musical genre became important in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Wilczek detailed contextual influences such as a changed appreciation of the rites of death after the Enlightenment and French Revolution, and a new, more theatrical approach. He looked in detail first at François-Joseph Gossec’s Marche Lugubre, and then especially at Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat major Op. 26, with its famous funeral march. With a strong background in literature, Wilczek presented much evidence and contemporary discussion for the understanding that grief and mourning converted to musical form became an expression of the heroic.

The afternoon opened with the third keynote address, given by Wolfgang Marx: ‘“In memoria aeterna erit justus”: The Theatricality of French High Baroque Requiem Compositions’. Marx spoke about actual funerals and their music and looked at the requiem settings by Jean Gilles and André Campra, briefly referring also to that by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. His detailed analysis of the music was linked to a more general semantic discussion of ‘theatricality’, perfectly matching the conference theme. The musical contributions to these funerals moved beyond a mere elaboration of the liturgy towards also acting as works of commemoration. In this way, Marx’s paper lent much support to what had been presented in some of the earlier papers.

The final session returned to southern Europe, with three papers under the heading ‘The Ideological Function and Architectural Spaces of Funeral Rituals with Music in Spain and Portugal’. Rodrigo Teodoro de Paula (Centro de Estudos Humanísticos, Universidade do Minho) presented an interesting study of the sounds heard at Portuguese funerals between 1521 and 1750. It was the only paper given in Spanish, spoken slowly and clearly, and his slides presented important summaries and quotations in English. By concentrating on the funerals of Kings Manuel I, João IV and João V, de Paula showed the integral role played not only by music but also by other sounds within these funeral rites, both outdoors and indoors. He emphasized that the actual music of the mass was, modestly, just chanted, at best followed by a more elaborate responsory. This led very smoothly to the next paper, by Luís Neiva (Centro de Estudos em Música, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), whose subject was ‘Conviction, Doubt and Faith: Polyphony and Subjectivity at a Royal Funeral’. Neiva offered a close look at a contemporary remark about a mass held at the monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra to commemorate the death of João III in 1557: that the singers sang in plainchant, rather than polyphony, because they were too overwhelmed in their grief. While it was firmly focused on this specific case, the paper highlighted the wide-reaching implications for the role of elaborate music at such events, thus taking the arguments presented at the conference to a more meaningful, overarching level.

In the final paper, Catherine Saucier (Arizona State University) took the audience to Spain, with ‘Memorials for Queen Isabel “la Católica”, Music for St John the Evangelist, and Castilian Lineage’. As she herself pointed out at the beginning, her paper was not about an actual funeral but about memorial devotions – in this case by Emperor Charles V for his grandmother Isabel I of Castile. In a detailed interdisciplinary analysis Saucier traced the importance of St John and his eagle in commemorating the queen, and argued that Gombert’s motet Sancte Iohannes Apostole paid special tribute to the late queen’s crest of an eagle and her motto that refers to the eagle’s wings.

While all the papers of the two days of the conference provided good introductions to quite specific issues and works – and sometimes took the participants away from the actual topic of noble funerals – the three keynote addresses focused more distinctly on the theme of the conference. The latter were in themselves not much longer than the other talks, and their longer discussion times provided opportunities to cover some wider-reaching issues in more detail. Altogether the delegates asked good and pertinent questions, which were well answered by the speakers.

It was good to see many younger scholars, some still working on their doctoral dissertations. However, it is a regrettable factor – beyond the control of the organizers – that in recent conferences, the number of attendees at individual sessions seems to vary. The lack of consistent participation could be interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm. There were very few delegates who attended all, or at least most, of the presentations. It is understandable that not everyone can make two full days, and may arrive later or leave earlier, yet considering that everyone giving a paper hopes for a good audience, it is puzzling when participants attend only their own session but nothing else.

There was – not wholly surprisingly, given that two of the organizing institutions were Italian – altogether a strong emphasis on Italy, but France and the Iberian Peninsula were also well represented, and there were various papers and references to funerals in the German lands. England was mentioned too (in one paper). The conference’s clear focus on funeral music was occasionally blurred by the inclusion of several papers that did not, in fact, discuss music, or indeed funerals. The consideration given to Protestant traditions was also a bit brief, so that one might have ended up with the impression that the ‘Theatre of Death’ was predominantly a Catholic phenomenon. This, however, may have been one of the main unarticulated outcomes of the conference: as the Protestant tradition(s) did not have in absentia corporis services, the ‘Theatre of Death’ saw many more performances in Catholic lands. Altogether, with its interdisciplinary approach to the performative character of European aristocratic funerary culture from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, this event was very enjoyable and informative, and presented some stimulating material and ideas. It was quite simply astonishing to see how many – and how many different – performances had been given in the ‘Theatre of Death’.