Eighteenth-Century Diplomats as Musical Agents, in Frédéric Ramel and Cécile Prévost-Thomas, eds., International Relations, Music, and Diplomacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 43-64. (original) (raw)
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Diplomats as Musical Agents in the Age of Haydn
This article appears in a revised and slightly expanded form as "Eighteenth-Century Diplomats as Musical Agents," in Frédéric Ramel and Cécile Prévost-Thomas, eds., International Relations, Music, and Diplomacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 43-64. Vienna’s embassies were major centers of musical activity throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Resident diplomats, in addition to being patrons and performers, often acted as musical agents, facilitating musical interactions within and between courts, among individuals and firms, and in their private salons. Through these varied activities, they played a vital role in shaping a transnational European musical culture. This essay identifies fifteen resident diplomats who made significant contributions to Vienna’s musical scene during Haydn’s lifetime. Exploring their correspondence and other contemporary sources, it highlights the ways in which diplomatic musical exchanges, interventions, and collaborations helped to shape the era’s musical culture. An examination of Charles Burney’s visit to Vienna in 1772 from the perspective of “insider” and “small-world” networks further elucidates the central role diplomats played in the city’s salon life.
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How does music (its concepts, practices, and institutions) shape the exercise of diplomacy, the pursuit of power, and the conduct of international relations? Drawing together sixteen international scholars with backgrounds in musicology, ethnomusicology, political science, cultural history, French studies, German studies, and communication, this volume interweaves historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives. Considering such issues as what it means for political bodies to act "in concert," the question of music's "universality," the concept of free improvisation as it relates to twenty-first century political policy, the role of orchestras and traveling musicians in promoting cultural exchange, and the use of music as an agent of globalization and transnational encounter, the essays not only cross disciplinary boundaries but also geographical and musical ones.
Musical category, political concept, and political myth, the Concert of nations emerged within 16th- and 17th-century court culture. While the phrase may not have entered the political vocabulary before the end of the 18th century, the representation of nations in sonorous and visual ensembles is contemporary to the institution of the modern state and the first developments of the international system. As a musical category, the Concert of nations encompasses various genres- ballet, dance suite, opera, and symphony.
Musical power and the East-West international diplomacy
2017
Within this book, the editor establishes a dialogue between historians and musicologists bringing the idea that music is not only a musicological object but can even be a powerful tool for historians to understand and narrate the history of international relations in the 20 th century. In this vein, contributors to the book were selected among both disciplines and according to their respective interests within the related sub-disciplines of history and musicology, but also for their attention to particular concepts and theories the editor decided to highlight – genres (musical), Cold War, manipulation, communication, and the state.
Musical power and the East-West international diplomacy [compte-rendu]
Anthropology Book Forum, 2017
Within this book, the editor establishes a dialogue between historians and musicologists bringing the idea that music is not only a musicological object but can even be a powerful tool for historians to understand and narrate the history of international relations in the 20th century. In this vein, contributors to the book were selected among both disciplines and according to their respective interests within the related sub-disciplines of history and musicology, but also for their attention to particular concepts and theories the editor decided to highlight – genres (musical), Cold War, manipulation, communication, and the state.
Soft power to the people: Music and Diplomacy in International History
2019
Reception history is the history of the meanings that have been imputed to historical events. This approach traces the different ways in which participants, observers, and historians and other retrospective interpreters have attempted to make sense of events, both as they unfolded, and over time since then, to make those events meaningful for the present in which they lived and live. (Marcuse, 2017) A work of art has a changing reception history, and thus history consists of multiple data, and by compiling them a patchwork of memory is being created. 1 The underlying assumption about music being a universal langua ge The assumption that music somehow is a universal language, based on feelings, brings up many ethical questions. I would like to discuss these and try to detect the aesthetical surface that this assumption is based upon. One assumption is that music belongs to some sort of a higher realm, and therefore is severed from ethics. If music somehow belongs to a higher sphere, then it is harder to argue that it can build bridges in the world. Because the world is concrete, and the higher sphere is abstract. So, I would like to discuss where its place is in the concrete world. Music is connected to the concrete world I believe, and therefore also connected to the different rules of moral behaviour, and ethical guidelines that exists within that community. If music can be used as diplomatic tool, it is maybe precisely because it belongs to the mundane, concrete world of differences, and therefore can create feelings of belonging across cultural divides. The language analogy is often used as an explanation or a tool to see music as an overreaching bridge in conversation. This bridge can then be used to conquer division between people, peoples, or nations. The assumption that music creates a sense of community, or togetherness, and in an even broader senses, an assumption that music can create peace, is provided by a strong belief in, or acceptance of a kind of universal truth. The field of music philosophy has searched into the question of music as a universal language, and a lot of work has been done within the field of popular musicology. At the BBC Proms in 2017, the conductor Daniel Barenboim reminded the audience of the power music had because it was beyond the national. "When I look at the world with so many isolation tendencies, I get very worried and I know I'm not alone," he spoke, Our profession, the music profession is the only profession that is not national. No German musician will tell you "I am a German musician, and I will only play Brahms, Schuman and Beethoven." (Proms, 2017) 1 Concert programs and advertisements, critical notices, musicological and other writings, editions, recordings, and even musical works by later composers, all contribute to what is known as reception history.