Call of Papers: Authorship in Historical Keyboard Music (7-9 June 2018)

Authorship in Historical Keyboard Music (7-9 June 2018)

CESEM, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Following on from two events in Edinburgh, United Kingdom (ICHKM 2011, 2013), this third conference proposes to focus on authorship in historical keyboard music, encompassing all periods and styles. Its general aims are to look at some of the ways ideas about authorship have changed over time in keyboard music, offer opportunities for researchers working on different periods and places to share knowledge and expertise, and to bring together practitioners and musicologists. Two main topic areas are suggested, one concerned specifically with problems associated with research on authorship, another on historical concepts of authorship.

Papers addressing the first topic could focus upon:

– Source evidence (codicological, palaeographical).
– Stylistic evidence (such as analyses of cadential formulae or of other thematic ‘fingerprints’ of composers and/or copyists).
– ‘Cautionary tales’ (such as cases where authorship has been asserted problematically).
– Unresolvable questions of authorship.
– The possible relevance of methods in other fields (such as fine art).
those addressing the second might consider:
– Examples of shared authorship, including creative arranging practices, or practices of multi-author compilation.
– Practices of historical publishers/music printers/professional copyists, how authorship was presented in their scores, and how attempts to deliberately mislead may be understood.
– The practice of ‘creative copying’, what it involved, and at different times and places.
– Self-concepts of authorship, including the extent to which composers drew a distinction, in their own minds or for their audiences, between ‘original’ repertoire and music arranged from other media.
– Questions of authorship and histories of keyboard music, including how ideas of authorship have evolved in histories.
– Relations between scholarship and marketing practices of record companies, editors, performers and agents up to the present time (e.g. in the promotion of music whose authorship has been newly established or asserted).

Presentation formats: 30 minutes (including ca.10 minutes discussion) or 40 minutes (including ca.10 minutes discussion). Forty-minute presentations should include a performance component. Abstracts should specify whether live performance will be a feature of the presentation. A harpsichord will be available.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: Friday 12th January 2018

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words, anonymised for the purpose of review, and submitted as a Word document to: awoolley@fcsh.unl.pt.  Emails should use ‘ICHKM’ in the subject heading and should contain contact details. Questions may be directed to Andrew Woolley in the first instance (awoolley@fcsh.unl.pt).

Scientific and organising committee:

Dr João Pedro d’Alvarenga (Universidade Nova, Lisbon)

Dr Águeda Pedrero Encabo (University of Valladolid)

Dr Erasmo Estrada (Recife)

Dr Filipe Mesquita de Oliveira (University of Évora)

Prof David J. Smith (University of Aberdeen)

Dr João Vaz (Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa)

Dr Andrew Woolley (Universidade Nova, Lisbon)