PASTICCIO - Ways of Arranging Attractive Operas

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Gesa zur Nieden
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 381548153

Within the current field of studies on the mobilities of Early Modern musicians, the operatic pasticcio (i.e. a most popular genre consisting of the arrangement of pre-existing musical material for opera perfor-mances) has emerged as a paradigmatic musical genre of European musical life during the 18th century. Its structure and aesthetics were not only based on the European-wide distribution and knowledge of musical material, but also on developing concepts of artistic talent, compositional models, and musical ownership. All those concepts were shaped not only by travelling musicians and by the transregional reception of operatic productions, but by political-symbolic intentions and economics. The project aims to investigate the under-researched operatic pasticcio as a genre characterized by the mobilities of Early Modern musicians. For that, it will analyse the material basis, the compositional and performative creation, as well as the musical reception of pasticcios within a European-wide network of metropolises and courts like Venice, London, Hamburg, Munich, Dresden, Wroclaw (Breslau) and Warsaw. On the one hand, tracing such modes of musical transfer and distribution will elucidate the circum-stances for the creation and production of pasticcios. On the other hand, an analysis of the musical and literary authorship and its political, social and cultural functions encompassed by the models of pasticcio fragments and by the pasticcios themselves will give insight into both the central aesthetic and cultural developments of the 18th century and the mobilities of its musicians.The project team which has been working together for three years on questions of the mobilities of Early Modern musicians will undertake this research through a series of individual projects tightly linked through the collaborative initiatives of a joint database, the creation of online musical editions of chosen pasticcios, as well as through regular workshops. Within these individual projects, both Italy as a model culture and the musical activities of the Polish crown will cover central points of common investigation. The main objective is the development of an innovative digital infrastructure that combinates musical editions and a historical database in order to reflect the cultural and aesthetic hybridities of 18th-century music.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Aneta Markuszewska