This report provides an overview of recent publications, conference presentations, and concerts in North America from Fall 2023 to Spring 2024, as shared by members of the AHSS.
Derek Stauff, my predecessor as AHSS representative, has announced that his forthcoming book, Lutheran Music and the Thirty Years’ War: Politics, Confession, Devotion, will be published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2025. Additionally, Mary Frandsen has completed revisions of her Grove Music Online encyclopedia article on Vincenzo Albrici (1631–1687). This updated article incorporates new biographical details uncovered by Matteo Messori and others and includes, for the first time, a discussion of Albrici’s secular music.
At the annual meeting of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music in Princeton in April 2024, three presentations focused on music from German-speaking regions, with two also addressing global contexts:
- Paul Feller-Simmons (Northwestern University) delivered a paper titled “Jewish Musicianship in Leipzig after the Thirty Years’ War,” showcasing an impressive array of sources on Jewish musicians, particularly those linked to the Leipzig Trade Fair.
- Bernardo Illari (University of North Texas) discussed the reception of Western music by the indigenous Guarani population in present-day Paraguay, using Johann Kaspar Kerll’s sacred vocal works as a case study.
- My own presentation explored representations of fictional Africans through sound and visual media at court festivals in Kassel (1596), Halle (1616), and Stuttgart (1616). I examined how music, sound, and dance contributed to constructing “race” through processes of categorization, homogenization, and hierarchization.
A highlight of the conference was an impressive choral concert dedicated to early modern funeral music from Dresden, Salzburg, London, and Moscow. The Princeton University Chamber Choir performed motets by Heinrich Schütz (Die mit Tränen säen, SWV 378, and Das ist je gewißlich wahr, SWV 388) alongside a double-choral motet by Schütz’s “Enkelschüler” Andreas Gleich and a sacred madrigal by Johann Hermann Schein. During the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in Chicago in November 2024, The Newberry Consort and Schola Antiqua collaborated on a concert exploring the musical culture of late Renaissance Prague. The program featured works by Schütz’s contemporaries Michael Praetorius, Nicolaus Zangius, and Heinrich Scheidemann, alongside pieces by earlier composers.
This report offers only a partial snapshot of North American activities related to Schütz over the past year. I encourage AHSS members to share details about their publications and events for inclusion in future reports. Please feel free to contact me at aspohr@bgsu.edu.
Bowling Green, December 9, 2024
Dr. Arne Spohr
Professor of Musicology
College of Musical Arts
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio 43403
aspohr@bgsu.edu
