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The Sound of Empire: Soundscapes, Aesthetics and Performance between «Ancien régime» and Restoration

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Sound of Empire couvBook in English, French and Italian, edited by Federico Gon and Emmanuel Reibel, Turnhout : Brepols, 2023. With the support of the Palazzetto Bru Zane.

The second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century was a time of great historical and social upheavals — a melting pot of events whose repercussions are still felt.

The first industrial revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars: such were events that gradually undermined the status quo of the Ancien régime. Napoleon Bonaparte is the keystone of this period, given his role as an innovator of aspects of the military, political, civil, artistic and cultural life of his time.

This book explores the musical changes brought on by the multifaceted pre- and post-Napoleonic sonic world. It focuses on the politicised dramaturgy at the Paris Opera, on the incredible diffusion of French opera in the German-speaking world, and on the question of national identity in Italian, Polish, Spanish and Portuguese contexts during this politically critical period.

Beyond operas and cantatas in praise of Napoleon, this book also highlights the mechanical soundscape of the Empire, the repertoire of incidental music and the varied fortunes of the music business at that time. Finally, it analyses the place of female singers or composers from a gendered perspective.

Centro Studi Omnia Opera Luigi Boccherini Brepols

Content

Federico Gon & Emmanuel Reibel – Preface

Politics and National Identity 

Galliano Ciliberti – Francesco Morlacchi, Napoleone i e il sound imperiale tra Italia e Germania 

Magdalena Oliferko-Storck – Napoleonic Warsaw: The Emperor’s Sojourns and the French Culture in the Soundscape of the Capital of Poland before Chopin 

Eric Boaro – «Non essendovi più capelle in veruna chiesa…». Finanziamento e impiego musicale nella Modena giacobina e la stagione al Teatro Rangone tra il 1798 e il 1799

Federico Gon – ‘Feast, Flour, and Gallows’: Haydn’s Creation in Naples (1821) and the Politics of Restoration 

Matthieu Cailliez – Étude des transferts musicaux franco-allemands à l’époque napoléonienne à travers le prisme de l’Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung

Maria Bribili – The Sound of Empire: Politicised Dramaturgy in French Opera from the French Revolution to Napoleon 

Martin Barré – Dans l’ombre de Paris. Circulation et diffusion de la musique de scène sous l’Empire: l’exemple du théâtre de Versailles 

Annelies Andries – Caroline Branchu: A Model of Nineteenth-Century Womanhood? 

Claudia Chibici-Revneanu – Moving towards Exclusion: A Case Study of the ‘Female Viennese School’

Music Publishing And Teaching 

Henri Vanhulst – Les relations entre Jean-Jérôme Imbault et ses compositeurs d’après des lettres de Jean-Louis Duport et Ferdinando Paër 

David Rowland – Music Publishing and Markets c.1750-1830

Soundscapes and Aesthetics 

Emmanuel Reibel – The Empire’s Mechanical Musics: From Soundscape to Reception

Inês Thomas Almeida – Imaginary Soundscapes: The Sounds of Portuguese Music as Captured by German Travellers at the End of the Ancien Régime 

Alban Ramaut – Le Napoléon d’Hector Berlioz, proposition de lecture
 

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Related persons

Soprano

Caroline BRANCHU

(1780 - 1850)

Composer

Ferdinando PAËR

(1771 - 1839)

Composer, Cellist

Jean-Louis DUPORT

(1749 - 1819)

Conductor, Composer, Journalist

Hector BERLIOZ

(1803 - 1869)

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