Organized by Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca, and Villa Medici Giulini, Briosco (MB) in association with: Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française, Venice under the auspices of: Fondazione Istituto Liszt, Bologna
2011 is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, and in addition to the expected flood of recordings being released in commemoration of that event, the musicological community has organized quite literally hundreds of conferences and symposia devoted to the composer’s music, his life, and nineteenth century culture and aesthetics more generally. I had the honor to be selected to give a paper at the above conference on the subject of “Liszt’s Transcriptions as Evidence of Vibrato in the Nineteenth Century Orchestra,” as well as the chance to hear more than two dozen other presentations on a wide range of subjects.
The location of the conference was the Villa Medici Giulini, located in the town of Briosco, just north of Milan. The Villa houses a remarkable collection of historical keyboard instruments, including more than sixty pianos, several organs, and an impressive selection of Érard harps. The pianos range from some stunningly beautiful Viennese fortepianos by Walter, to the French Érard instruments favored by Liszt himself, right up to the modern concert grand. Sra. Fernanda Giulini operates the villa as both a conference center as well as an educational institute for master classes and in-depth study of keyboard instruments and performance practice. You can view the Villa and some of its collection here:
http://www.villamedici-giulini.it/villa/collezione-strumenti-eng.htm
The Villa Medici Giulini also publishes a choice selection of scholarly books, and in connection with the conference it has released an impressive volume entitled In Search of Lost Sounds: Liszt and the Érard Sound. The book contains splendid articles on Liszt’s relationship with the Érard family, his early works, musical life in Paris and Italy, and Liszt’s relationship with the harp. All of the articles are offered in Italian, French, and English. They feature magnificent photographs of paintings, sketches, original documents, and a selection of instruments from the Villa Medici Giulini collection, including full technical specifications.
The book also includes two compact discs containing some very rarely heard Liszt works, performed on instruments from the Villa’s collection. These include songs, the Psalms 23 and 137 for female voices, harp, harmonium, violin, and piano (variously), and the Huit variations, Op. 1, dedicated to Sébastien Érard. Editor Nicolas Dufetel, of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung/Institüt für Musikwissenschaft Weimar-Jena, has taken this opportunity to put together a fascinating chronicle of early Romantic musical life and musical sound. His own presentation during the conference, concerning the unpublished letters of Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was certainly one of the highlights.
Keynote speakers included Florence Gétreau (Institute de Recherche sur le Patrimoine Musical en France — CNRS, Paris), who offered a fascinating iconographic study of Josef Danhauser’s famous painting “Liszt at the Piano,” and Yale University’s Leon Plantiga, whose insights into the circumstances of performance in the nineteenth century illuminated the question of “Why the Virtuosos Stopped Playing.” Other presentations on the subject of touring virtuosos included Mark Kroll’s (Boston University/Northeastern University) discussion of “Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the First Touring Virtuoso,” and an extremely well-researched presentation on “The Repertoire of Virtuosi Visiting Porto until the First World War,” courtesy of Ana Maria Liberal (CITAR — Portuguese Catholic University) and Rui Pereira (Casa da Música, Porto).
These and other presentations on composers and performers as diverse as Mendelssohn, Berlioz, violinist Ole Bull, pianist Julian Fontana, and clarinet virtuoso Ernesto Cavallini, together made for an extremely informative and enjoyable three days of learning and conversation. Through it all, hosts Roberto Illiano, Fulvia Morabito, and Massimiliano Sala ensured that the conference moved forward seamlessly despite the indisposition of a couple of the scheduled presenters. A book of proceedings of the conference has been announced to be published by Italy’s Ut Orpheus Edizioni, but in the meantime anyone interested in the topics on offer can find more information at the website of the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini:
http://www.luigiboccherini.org/conf.html
I look forward to attending and reporting on more musicological conferences in future, as a way of offering our readers a taste of the latest scholarship on matters musical of all kinds.
David Hurwitz Executive Editor
