Institute for Musicology of the Research Centre for Humanities HUN-REN and Study Group Music and Cultural Studies IMS announce the interdisciplinary conference Musical Discourses on the National Idea in 19th- and 20th-Century Music Historiography and Criticism Revisited.

Musical Discourses on the National Idea in 19th- and 20th-Century Music Historiography and Criticism Revisited

4-5 December 2025

Budapest, Institute for Musicology of the Research Centre for Humanities HUN-REN

Convenors:

Katalin Kim (Institute for Musicology of the Research Centre for Humanities HUN-REN) and Tatjana Marković (ACDH, Department of Musicology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)

Call for Papers

In 19th- and early 20th-century music historiography and criticism, the question of national identity emerged as a central concern – both in normative and projective terms. Normatively, these discourses on music history and musical life (including music criticism related to composition, performance, repertoire, music publishing, and music education) actively contributed to the formation of national identity, with their authors—music historians, critics, aestheticians, and others – often playing key roles in broader efforts of cultural nation-building. Additionally, in some cases the idea of national identity was formed in parallel with the supranational identity, or redefined it, in accordance with political and cultural contexts in different areas.

Music criticism—as one of the defining genres of the emerging bourgeois musical public sphere—and the music-historical writings of this period, particularly the first major syntheses produced during and about the era of cultural nation-building (in Hungary, notably around the time of the *Millennium celebrations at the turn of the century), articulated national canons and constructed enduring national narratives. Furthermore, musicology as an academic discipline was established after World War II and was based, in some cases, on the multiple identities (Socialist Yugoslavia).

The processes of modernization and bourgeois transformation were frequently embedded within narratives of supranational and national self-definition. Often authored by contemporaries, these early historical syntheses were, for a long time, received by later scholarship with insufficient critical distance—especially given that music historiography has only begun in recent decades to move beyond, or even question, the framework of the cultural national narrative. This observation holds not only for Hungary but arguably for other countries in the region and beyond as well.

A discourse-analytical investigation of 19th- and early 20th-century music historiography and criticism—especially when studied in conjunction with the musical life and institutions of the period—can shed light on deeply embedded discursive structures, rhetorical topoi, recurring patterns, and unexamined metaphors that deserve renewed reflection and critique.

Through the critical analysis of the often still deeply rooted national discourse of the 19th and early 20th centuries, it becomes clearer that national identity—and with it, national music—is always a mixture of cross-cultural exchanges beyond borders, or within a single space (a region), as a blend of different voices.

By subjecting the authors and writings of nationally focused music historiography and criticism to critical analysis, and examining the polemics that unfolded through them, we can uncover not only the strategies and processes of cultural nation-building, but also identify the actors (minorities, women, minor masters, etc.), locations, networks, and different cultural memories that were omitted, excluded, or not integrated into the national narrative.

At the same time, this perspective reveals not only the multifaceted nature of the sources and backgrounds of national identity and national music, but also the constancy and complexity of musical transfer processes—demonstrating the presence of a fluid geographical transfer. This appears most prominently in border and contact zones, but was essentially present throughout the entire territory of multi-ethnic states, such as Hungary / Habsburg Monarchy or later Yugoslavia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, in varying cultural, ethnic, and religious compositions. All of these aspects reflect not only the coexistence and interaction of these various identities but also the presence—persisting in part into the late 19th century and beyond— of multiple identities: the simultaneous experience of cultural-linguistic national identity and political national identity (the Hungarus consciousness), further complemented by regional, cultural, religious, and other identities, or supranational south Slavic identities.

Music historiography has only recently begun to confront this complexity (see, for example, studies of border regions). In this regard, the critical analysis of 19th- and early 20th-century musical discourse, through the identification of earlier patterns, can promote the self-reflection of present-day music historiography and open the way toward a shared historiography.

This conference is organized to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

We invite papers engaging with (but not limited to) the following themes:

1. Discourse-analytical studies on the construction of supranational and national identity in 19th- and early 20th-century music historiography and criticism (e.g. discourse analysis, intertextuality, hybrid identity);
2. Studies on the emergence, consolidation, and redefinitions of national music canons, their mechanisms, and historiographical strategies, in relation to current knowledge about the musical life and composition of the period (e.g., canon studies, narrative analysis);
3. Examinations of the key figures involved in canon formation and deconstruction, and nation-building (e.g. critics, historians, editors);
4. Research on the role of key institutions and platforms—such as journals, music societies, academies, museums, libraries, publishers, and other cultural institutions—in shaping, deconstructing, and reconstructing national canons and narratives in music history;
5. Reflections on historiography’s engagement with supranational and national narratives, both in its uncritical adoption and its more recent critiques and revisions.

Submission

Abstracts of a maximum of 200 words in English with a short biography should be sent by 1 October to the email addresses of the organisers, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and/or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.    

Venue

Institute for Musicology of the Research Center for Humanities HUN-REN

Programme Committee

Tatjana Marković, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Katalin Kim, Institute for Musicology of the Research Center for Humanities HUN-REN

Pál Richter, Institute for Musicology of the Research Center for Humanities HUN-REN

Alexandros Charkiolakis, The Friends of Music Society, Athens

Zdravko Blažeković, Executive Director of RILM, City University Graduate Center, New York

Leon Stefanija, University of Ljubljana

Rūta Stanevičiūtė, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius

Rima Povilioniené, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius

Lenka Krupkova, Palacký University Olomouc

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