Music and the Nordic Breakthrough: Sibelius/Nielsen/Glazunov 2015

[Society for Music Theory]

Music and the Nordic Breakthrough: Sibelius/Nielsen/Glazunov 2015 

University of Oxford, 31 August-2 September 2015

The 150th anniversary of the births of Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, and Alexander Glazunov presents a unique opportunity to celebrate the life, work, and cultural environment of three of the most significant creative musical figures from the greater Baltic/Nordic region (Copenhagen to St Petersburg) around the turn of the twentieth century. Taking its cue from George Brandes’ epochal 1883 volume Men of the Modern Breakthrough, .

This conference seeks to reappraise the work of Sibelius, Nielsen, Glazunov and their contemporaries (a remarkable generation of artists, writers, architects, designers and musicians that included Henrik Ibsen, Amalie Skram, August Strindberg, Edvard Munch, Knut Hamsun, Selma Lagerlöf, Eliel Saarinen, and Ilya Repin). Simultaneously, it seeks to expand the notion of the ‘Nordic zone’ as a geographical category, and to promote a new, wider understanding of the Nordic region as a distinctive arena of cultural activity.

Conference discussion will address any aspect of the Nordic/Baltic modern wave. Topics might include, but will not be limited to:

 The music of Sibelius, Nielsen, Glazunov, including its genesis, critical reception and analysis;

 Performance in the Nordic fin-de-siècle: the lives, careers, and mobilities of instrumentalists and divas such as Christina Nilsson and Aino Ackté;

 Notions of influence, inheritance, and legacy (e.g. the ‘shadow of Sibelius’);

 Definitions of ‘modernism’ and reactions/resistance to the ‘modern breakthrough’, conservatism;

 Gender, sexuality, and the Nordic fin-de-siècle;

 Music, myth, folklore, and fairytale;

 Musical landscapes, Texts, and Environments;

 Centres and Peripheries: issues of music, geography, and historiography;

 Music and the Idea of North (including ideologies of ethnicity and race); 

 Translation, mediation, and transnationalism in the Nordic sphere.

Proposals are invited for 25-minute presentations on any of the above themes or other relevant topics. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should summarise succinctly the content of the proposed paper and its contribution to existing research. Deadline for the receipt of abstracts is 31 January 2015, and the programme will be announced in early March. The conference language will be English.

For more information, contact the convenors, Prof. Daniel Grimley and Prof. Philip Ross Bullock: nordic at music.ox.ac.uk .