In the 19th century a series of transformative technological leaps connected people more than ever before, broadening the reach of transnational networks through which ideas and cultures travelled. This project traces the transnational history of one of Europe’s most politicized cultural exports: the symphony. It demonstrates that travel, transnational exchange, and dissemination through networks, shaped the development of the symphony in ways not previously understood.
Historical narratives of the symphony have long been organized around units of nations. However, musicians, conductors, and symphonies crossed geopolitical boundaries, as often as they reinforced them. Symphonies on the Move unravels how meanings (both aesthetic and political), performance practices, and compositional styles changed as a result of travel and cultural exchange. This transnational approach opens up new meanings and roles for the genre, whether as entertainment within popular promenade concerts in Paris, a vehicle for cultural diplomacy in German-American foreign policy, a treasure trove of themes for hymn tunes in England, or even a demonstration of a nation-state’s cultural arrival on the international stage. It also generates new insights about the economic, geographical, institutional, technological, and social forces shaping the symphonic genre’s development. Some of the actors are familiar names, but others, including critics, composers (especially hitherto neglected women and people of diverse ethnicities), teachers, publishers, and administrators, are less well known. The project demonstrates that these individuals played a crucial role in transmitting symphonies across an expanding and increasingly connected geographical space. It reveals that they had a significant influence on how the symphonic landscape was defined and understood.
During the first stage of the project the team has created a database of the performances of symphonies by major orchestras in a number of key cities, namely Paris, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Vienna, Leipzig, New York, Boston, and Chicago. The purpose of the database is to help users find out where and when symphonies were performed, to trace any trends in frequency of performance across time and space, and to begin to deduce relationships between cities by comparing their symphonic repertoire and examining where a first performance in one city was likely to lead next.