International Conference organized by
Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini
Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française (Venice)
IAM-Institute for Applied Musicology
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Lovere (BG), Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini
Via Paglia 26/28
13-15 November 2026
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CALL FOR PAPERS
The Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, the Palazzetto Bru Zane and the Institute for Applied Musicology are pleased to invite submissions of proposals for the Conference «The Reception of the Wiener Klassik in Central Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century: Legacy, Perspectives and Influences» to be held in Lovere (BG), Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, from 13 to 15 November 2026.
The ninety years between Beethoven’s death (1827) and the fall of the Habsburg Empire following the Great War (1918) roughly overlap with the end of the musical phenomenon of the Wiener Klassik and the birth, development and decline of Romantic aesthetics. What was the legacy of the masters of Classicism in terms of compositional influence on the production of the following decades is a subject that has already been critically addressed in depth (one may cite, as examples, some monumental studies in the discipline of the varied nature of those by Peter Brown, William Caplin, Daniel Heartz, Lewis Lockwood, Charles Rosen, Elaine Sisman, James Webster).
Equally interesting, and extending beyond the best-known and most acclaimed cases of Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler, is the investigation of how this monumental legacy was able to shape and build the musical culture of the 19th century in the Habsburg Empire itself.
It is therefore the aim of this conference to deepen and broaden the research angles in order to investigate, in addition to aspects of compositional technique and styles, those that are more specifically cultural, and to examine the spred of influence (with their differences and similarities) between regions, societies, and traditions that are very different and also geographically distant from each other.
Focusing on such temporal and geographical coordinates is of primary importance, for at least two interconnected reasons:
1) Mitteleuropa united in itself, politically as well as culturally, ethnic groups of Germanic, Latin, Slavic and Magyar descent who received this inheritance by filtering it through their specific cultural context;
2) the desire to probe an artistic-musical phenomenon in the same milieu that produced it, with the intention of providing new and stimulating perspectives.
The areas of investigation can include (and extend) the following topics:
- Public, Critics and the Press
- Music Legacy: Composers, Genres, Style
- Music Arrangements and Adaptation for Domestic Settings
- The Symphonic Tradition
- Orchestration and Instrumentation
- The Critical Reception of Beethoven’s Compositions by his Contemporaries
- Music Treatises
- Music, Literature and Poetry
- Beethoven in History and Politics
- Music and the Transformation of Taste
- Revolutions, Unifications and Wars in Central Europe
Scholarly Committee
- Federico Gon (Conservatorio di Musica ‘G. Tartini’ di Trieste)
- Roberto Illiano (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
- Étienne Jardin (Palazzetto Bru Zane)
- Fulvia Morabito (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
- Luca Lévi Sala (Manhattan University)
- Massimiliano Sala (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
Keynote Speakers
- Federico Celestini (Universität Innsbruck)
- Federico Gon (Conservatorio di Musica ‘G. Tartini’ di Trieste)
The official languages of the conference are English, French and Italian. Papers selected at the conference will be published in a miscellaneous volume.
Papers are limited to twenty minutes in length, allowing time for questions and discussion. Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words and one page of biography.
All proposals should be submitted by email no later than ***Sunday, 19 April 2026*** to <conferences@luigiboccherini.org>. With your proposal please include your name, contact details (postal address, e-mail and telephone number) and (if applicable) your affiliation.
The committee will make its final decision on the abstracts by May 2026 and contributors will be informed immediately thereafter. Further information about the programme and registration will be announced after that date.
For any additional information, please contact:
Dr. Massimiliano Sala
conferences@luigiboccherini.org
www.luigiboccherini.org
