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Oxford musicologist to present annual UNE lecture

September 21, 2006

Professor Reinhard Strohm
Professor Reinhard Strohm, an internationally renowned musicologist who has prepared critical editions of 15th century English Masses as well as music by Wagner and Vivaldi, will present this year’s Gordon Athol Anderson Memorial Lecture for The University of New England.

Reinhard Strohm (pictured here) is Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. His lecture, in Armidale Town Hall at 7.30 pm on Thursday 28 September, is titled “Late-medieval sacred songs: tradition, memory, history”.

An authority on late-medieval music and its social context, he is the author of Music in Late Medieval Bruges (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) and The Rise of European Music (1380-1500) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). He is the author, editor or co-editor of six other published books, and has published many scholarly essays on subjects ranging from 18th century Italian opera to modernist/postmodernist debates in musical historiography. He describes The Rise of European Music (1380-1500) as “a large-scale exploration of the emergence and meaning of ‘European’ music (as distinguished from merely regional musics within Europe) and its shared traditions, structures, aesthetics and institutional practices”.

His lecture next Thursday will be based on the observation that the sacred songs of the European Middle Ages are known to us both as a musical presence through tradition and as objects of historical reconstruction. “To cite one witness,” he notes, “the Internet records more instances of ‘In dulci jubilo’ than of all the works by Josquin des Prez taken together.”

The lecture is free, and everyone is welcome. It will be followed by supper in the Town Hall foyer. To assist with catering, please let the organisers know (by Tuesday 26 September) that you are planning to attend by phoning (02) 6773 2768, or e-mail: tjames@une.edu.au.

Professor Strohm was Lecturer then Reader in Music at King’s College, University of London, from 1975 to 1983, Professor of Musicology at Yale University from 1983 to 1990, and Reader then Professor of Historical Musicology at King’s College, University of London, from 1990 to 1996, before taking up his present position in 1996.

Professor Gordon Anderson, after whom the lecture series is named, was the first Australian academic to make an international impact on the study of medieval music. He held a personal Chair in Music at UNE from 1979 until his death in 1981. UNE inaugurated the Gordon Athol Anderson lecture series in 1983, and it has continued every year since then.

This year’s Gordon Athol Anderson Memorial Lecture has been timed to coincide with the 29th National Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia (MSA), being held in Armidale from 27 September to 1 October, hosted jointly by UNE and the Northern NSW Chapter of MSA.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at September 21, 2006 01:39 PM