Dr Alan Davison
Senior Lecturer, School of Arts
Qualifications
BMus Honours, University of Melbourne; PhD in Musicology, University of Melbourne; LTCL (pianoforte)
Contact
| Email: | alan.davison@une.edu.au |
| Room: | Music - CB Newling campus 19.1 |
| Phone: | 02 6773 6457 (or +61 2 6773 6457 overseas) |
| Fax: | 02 6773 6450 |
Alan Davison is a scholar of eighteenth and nineteenth century Western art music, specialising in music and visual culture, performance practice and music aesthetics. His doctoral thesis was on the iconography of Franz Liszt, and he has since published widely on portraiture of musicians. He commenced employment at UNE in late 2010, and prior to this was at the University of Otago from 2003.
Areas of Teaching
- Music theory and analysis
- Music history and aesthetics
- Western art song
Research interests
- Biography and reception of Franz Liszt
- Music and visual culture, especially portraiture of musicians from the 18th & 19th centuries
- Music, art and aesthetics in Europe during the long 19th century
- Music and symbolism in paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites
- Performance practice, with special interest in 19th-century pianism
Recent and Forthcoming Publications
Forthcoming
Eisen, C. & Davison, A. (eds). Late Eighteenth-Century Music and Visual Culture. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013 [contract signed, Feb 2012]. [Co-editor and contributor.]
“Representing Music Making”. In The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture, ed. T. Shephard & A. Leonard. London: Routledge, 2013.
“Woven Songs and Musical Mirrors: Symbolism in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Paintings with Stringed Instruments”. British Art Journal (2013) [accepted March 2012].
Recent (and in press) Sole-Authored Refereed Journal Articles / Scholarly Book Chapters
“Portraits of Dussek from London and Paris.” In Jan Ladislav Dussek: A Bohemian Composer En Voyage Through Europe (Quaderni Clementiani IV), ed. R. Stewart-MacDonald & R. Illiano. Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni, 2012 [in press, accepted Oct 2010].
“Franz Liszt amongst the Degenerates: On the Vagaries of Being a Musical Genius, c. 1890 – c. 1935”. In Liszt’s Legacies, ed. James Deaville & Michael Saffle, “Franz Liszt Studies Series”. New York: Pendragon, 2012 [in press, accepted October 2011].
“Musical Portraits in the 19th century: Images as Artifacts or Ideas?” In Enhancing Music Iconography Research, ed. A. Baldassarre, D. Pring & P.S. Blanco. Vienna: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2012 [in press, accepted June 2011].
“The Clarity of Distortion: Franz Liszt and Caricatures”. In Liszt: A Chorus of Voices, ed. John Tibbett & Michael Saffle, “Franz Liszt Studies Series”. New York: Pendragon, 2012 [in press, accepted October 2011].
“New Light on the Painter and Engraver Thomas Hardy (1757-1804)”. British Art Journal. 12/1 (2011): 37-41.
“Painting for a Requiem: Mihály Munkácsy’s The Last Moments of Mozart (1885).” Early Music. 39/1 (2011): 79-92.
“The Face of a Musical Genius: Thomas Hardy’s Portrait of Joseph Haydn.” Eighteenth-Century Music. 6/2 (2009): 209-227.
“The Iconography of an Émigré Musician: Henri-Pierre Danloux’s 1795 Portrait of Jan Ladislav Dussek.” Early Music. 37/2 (2009): 175-186.
Davison, A. “Franz Liszt and the Development of 19th-century pianism: A Re-Reading of the Evidence.” Musical Times. 147/1896 (2006): 33-43.
“Franz Liszt and the Physiognomic Ideal in the Nineteenth Century.” Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography. 30/1-2 (2005): 107-118.
“Virtuosity Domesticated: Portraits of Franz Liszt by Two Biedermeier Artists.” Nineteenth-Century Music Review. 2/1 (2005): 3-22.
Recent Conference Papers and Invited Lectures
“Images of Idols and the Emergence of Musical Celebrity: Printed Portraits of Musicians in the Romantic Era”. Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, Permeable Boundaries: Music and the Visual Arts session, Open University, Milton Keynes (March 2012).
“Portraits of Musicians as Sources for Musicologists”. Invited lecture, King’s College London (February 2012).
“Liszt as Genius in the Age of Degeneracy”. Invited speaker at Liszt’s Legacies, Carleton University, Ottawa (July 2011).
“Woven Songs and Musical Mirrors: Symbolism in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Paintings with Stringed Instruments”. Eighth Biennial Conference for Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Queen’s University, Belfast (July 2011).
“Music Iconography at the Boundaries: Mozart in the 19th Century”. Boundaries, Royal Musical Association Annual Conference, University of London (July 2010).
“Iconography as Reception: Haydn and his London Portraits”. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Forms of Expression, New Zealand School of Music (July 2009).
“Thomas Hardy’s Portrait of Haydn”. Invited lectures given at University of Cambridge’s Music Colloquium Series (4 March 2009) and Royal College of Music’s Grove Forum Series (5 March 2009).
“Thomas Hardy’s Portrait of Joseph Haydn”. Haydn and the Business of Music, international conference held at the British Library (March 2009).
“Portraits of Musicians by Thomas Hardy”. National Musicological Society of Australia conference, Melbourne (December 2008).
“Portraits as Likeness: Portraits as Reception”. New Directions in Music Iconography, Otago University (June 2008).
“The Iconography of an Émigré Musician: Henri-Pierre Danloux’s Portrait of Jan Ladislav Dussek”. International Association of Music Librarians conference, Sydney (July 2007).