[Laura Stokes]

Ideas for lightning talks at the AMS preconference

[Siegwart Reichwald]

Here’s my proposal for a lightning talk; it would be a condensed version of a formal paper I presented recently

Mendelssohn and the Reformed Tradition:

Re-evaluating Sources within the Context of the Prussian Restoration Movement

My new reading allows us to re-evaluate Mendelssohn’s only stint in church music as Music Director of Prussian Church Music for Friedrich IV in 1843/44. Not only have we underestimated Mendelssohn’s sense of obligation to the task of reforming the music of the Prussian Union of Churches, but his compositional efforts have also been undervalued. Once Mendelssohn’s large-scale approach was rejected in favor of a cappella Psalm singing, the composer’s subsequent smaller compositions have been tossed aside. By following his compositional journey from Christmas 1843 to Good Friday 1844 through careful study of his autographs a new picture emerges: Mendelssohn created a nuanced and expressive eight-part a cappella style culminating in his Psalm settings (MWV B 41, 45, 46, 51) and deutsche Messe(MWV B 57). Mendelssohn’s lasting legacy is evidenced in Lowell Mason’s Musical Letters from Abroad (1852) and Emil Naumann’s preface to Musica Sacra 8 (1855), one of several volumes of eight-part a cappella settings representative of the music of the Prussian Restoration Movement.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Siegwart Reichwald.

[Laura Stokes]

Here is my own proposal for a lightning talk:

Current and Historical Trends in Fanny Hensel Research (working title)

In the last two and a half years I have been undertaking extensive bibliographic research on Fanny Hensel. I will briefly review my findings, drawing a picture of major current and historical trends in the field. Particular tropes with respect to Hensel’s biography have been repeated and amplified over time, although the emergence of newly available primary source materials has had a mitigating effect on these mythologies. The current turn toward exploration and analysis of Hensel’s musical works is welcome and may spur new thinking about the vexing problem of editing those works.

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