News from the field of cultural history of music
News from the field of cultural history of music
Lecture by Prof Dr Anna Langenbruch
The politics of history on the opera stage: Wagner, Pfitzner and the performance of musical history
Guest lecture at the University of Basel
Tuesday, 24 March 2026 at 18:15, Lecture Hall, Department of Musicology, University of Basel
Lecture by Dr Clémence Schupp-Maurer
Restaging constructs of femininity? The portrayal of historical film actresses in musicals
as part of the annual meeting of the Friends and Sponsors of the German Musical Archive
Saturday, 07 March 2026, Centre for Popular Culture and Music at the University of Freiburg
Lecture by Dr Clémence Schupp-Maurer
"'Edith Piaf lives!' - Remembering chanson singers on the music theatre stage"
as part of the annual conference of the Austrian Society for Musicology 2025
Saturday, 15 November 2025, Anton Bruckner Private University Linz
Lecture by Prof Dr Anna Langenbruch
"Inventing the past, performing the past: History in music theatre"
as part of the event series DISKURS BAYREUTH 2025 on the topic "The Invention of the Past".
07-08 August 2025 at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, rehearsal stage IV.
New publication:
Music history and gender on stage.
Historical chanson and jazz singers in popular music theatre
Monograph by Clémence Schupp-Maurer
Billie Holiday, Édith Piaf, Claire Waldoff - female chanson and jazz singers are popular subjects of popular music theatre. In such productions, the theatre actors deal with music history, but also with the gender performance of the female musician portrayed: they reflect on self-presentation, the life and music of the historical figure, but also on (music) historiography. For the first time, Clémence Schupp-Maurer places this debate in the academic spotlight. Using an innovative method that combines approaches from ethnology, theatre studies and musicology, she analyses how music history and gender concepts emerge on stage.
New publication:
(Elective) affinities.
Collective cultural action
Edited by Maren Bagge, Christine Fornoff-Petrowski, Anna Ricke and Susanne Rode-Breymann
Music-related activities do not take place in a 'quiet chamber', but benefit from an exchange of ideas. Whether in joint collaboration, larger networks or through mutual inspiration: Relationships - within the family or in freely chosen communities - can open up creativity and room for manoeuvre, but also restrict it, influence ideas and shape artistic activity. This volume examines the significance of various forms of relationships for musical culture from the early modern period to the late 20th century. The contributions create a panorama of music-related (elective) relationships - from artistic co-operation, couple relationships and family structures to shared flats.
New perspectives on musicology
Information event on the M.A. Musicology degree programme
Wednesday, 21 May 2025, 4-5 p.m. | Institute of Music, Room A09 0-017
In an open atmosphere, we provide insights into studying musicology, information on the double master's programme, academic appointments, etc. and are available to answer questions from prospective students. Drop by - we look forward to the exchange! Registration is not required.
Research ethics and archival work in historical musicology
Research workshop
Concept: Dr Carola Bebermeier (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna); Prof Dr Anna Langenbruch (University of Oldenburg)
14-15 March 2025, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
Surveillance documents, camp files, compensation files, but also private letters or colonially influenced sound recordings - in the course of increasing cultural and social history research, historical musicology is focussing on source materials that result from situations with extremely asymmetrical power relations. These archival holdings require special reflection on the power imbalance from which they emerged. Against this background, the workshop is dedicated to research ethical problems and questions from the respective research practice of the participants and aims to explore the responsibilities that research ethics and archival work in historical musicology entail.
Lecture by Anna Langenbruch
"Of musical revolutions and singing philosophers: Music and the History of Knowledge"
as part of the inaugural series of lectures of School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies
Wednesday, 23 October 2024, 6 pm | BIS-Saal (opposite the circulation desk)
New publication: Musical Practice in the Long Nineteenth Century
Unknown Ego-Documents from Central Europe
Studies in musicology. Supplements to the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich 62
Edited by Lili Veronika Békéssy, Martin Eybl and Gesa Finke
ISBN: 978-3-99094-185-0
Vienna, 2024
Like no other source genre, first-person documents provide insights into the everyday history of music and into the thoughts of people who deal with music, their perceptions, their intentions and their memories. They are testimonies of self-perception and self-portrayal, whether in the private sphere of correspondence and diaries or in the printed form of autobiographical writings. Volume 62 of Studien zur Musikwissenschaft offers information on biographical documents relating to music, dating from the period between the French Revolution and the First World War, which have been discovered or rediscovered in research conducted in recent years. (Publisher's text)
With contributions by Lili Veronika Békéssy, Martin Eybl, Gesa Finke, Vjera Katalinić, Jana Laslavíková, Marko Motnik, Zsombor Németh, Tomasz Pudłocki, Emese Tóth.
Event: New perspectives on musicology
Information event on the M.A. Musicology degree programme
Wednesday, 22 May 2024, 4-5 p.m. | Institute of Music, Room A09 0-017
In an informal atmosphere, we provide insights into studying musicology, information on the double master's programme, academic appointments, etc. and are available to answer questions from prospective students. Drop by - we look forward to the exchange! Registration is not required.
New publication: Musical writing and gender
Gesa Finke / Julia Freund (eds.): Musikalische Schrift und Gender. Practices - Discourses - Perspectives, Bielefeld: transcript 2024 (Musik und Klangkultur 66).
Lecture by Anna Langenbruch
"Songs that write history - a challenge for historical theory?"
Songs that write history. Interdisciplinary conference
Institute of Musicology, Philipps University Marburg
7-9 March 2024
New publication: "Polyphonic History"
Anna Langenbruch: "Polyphonic History: On Histoire Croisée as a Method of Musicological Exile and Migration Research", in: W. Gratzer, N. Grosch, U. Präger and S. Scheiblhofer (eds.): The Routledge Handbook of Music and Migration: Theories and Methodologies, London: Routledge 2023, DOI: 10.4324/9781003309437, pp. 287-308, DOI: 10.4324/9781003309437-49.
News from the team
We welcome Gesa Finke as deputy professor (50%) in the research area Cultural History of Music
We are delighted to welcome musicologist Dr Gesa Finke as a 50% substitute professor in the Cultural History of Music research area! After her studies in Cologne and Aberdeen, Gesa Finke completed her doctorate at the University of Oldenburg in 2012 with a thesis on Constanze Mozart (published in 2013 under the title The composer's widow Constanze Mozart. Preserving music and shaping memory published by Böhlau-Verlag). She is currently working on a habilitation project on graphic forms of notation from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Gesa Finke was a research assistant at the University of Oldenburg, the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.
New publication: "History polyphonic"
Anna Langenbruch: "Geschichte polyphon: Zur Histoire croisée als Methode der musikwissenschaftlichen Exil- und Migrationsforschung", in: W. Gratzer, N. Grosch, U. Präger and S. Scheiblhofer (eds.): Musik und Migration: Ein Theorie- und Methodenhandbuch, Münster: Waxmann 2023, DOI: 10.31244/9783830996309, pp. 294-323.
Film music and film sound in the context of their mediation
Symposium of the Kiel Society for Film Music Research
23-24 June 2023, University of Vienna
Organisation: Henriette Engelke (University of Oldenburg) and Dieter Merlin (University of Vienna)
This year's symposium of the Kiel Society for Film Music Research deals with the question of how film music and related topics can be dealt with in a media- and reception-specific way in both school and university lessons and other teaching contexts, which learning objectives are associated with this and which competences should be promoted on the part of the learners. The aim is to explore the extent to which subject-specific film teaching should take into account the dimensions of other subjects and where there may be points of contact for interdisciplinary and possibly artistic work in order to optimise learning and apply what has been learned. A publication of the conference contributions in the Kieler Beiträgen zur Filmmusikforschung (peer-reviewed, open access) is planned for 2024.
Further information and the preliminary programme can be found on the website of the Kieler Gesellschaft für Filmmusikforschung. All interested parties are welcome as listeners and discussants and can register by 9 June by sending an email to .