Self-testimonies in music culture

Musicological research can draw on a large number of surviving testimonies - from letters to autobiographical notes and memoirs, diaries, travelogues and musical testimonies - which provide information about past musical culture and its protagonists. In fact, the use of these documents as sources of historical events and the thoughts and intentions of their authors has a long tradition in music historical research. However, while historical and literary studies have dealt very intensively with the source genre around the turn of the millennium, there has hardly been any theoretical or methodological reflection in historical musicology. This is where the outlined research project comes in and takes into account the potential of these documents for the historiography of music - beyond the (supposedly) authentic self-statements and historical facts. By means of exemplary thematic approaches focussing on the practices and functions of self-testimonies within music culture as well as a critical look at the way musicology deals with self-testimonies, individual areas will be explored, thus opening up the field of research for musicology.