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Advisor: Annegret Fauser

Dissertation Title: Branding Brussels Musically: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in the Interwar Years

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Dissertation Abstract:

My dissertation explores the efforts of the cultural elite in Brussels to establish their city as a center for the performance of the newest in European art music between the world wars. With the support of a fascinating group of patrons, institutional directors, concert organizers, and conductors, many of the foremost international composers of the period heard premieres of their work in the Belgian capital. The city’s rich musical life attracted Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Francis Poulenc, Paul Hindemith, and many others. Performances of their music made Brussels a crossroads for the distinct French, German, and Russian conceptions of musical modernism. Openness to this wide variety of new music became a hallmark of Belgium’s cultural identity. Musicological literature addresses the Belgian cultural elite’s involvement with musical modernism only superficially. By developing a nuanced view of the role of modern music in musical life in Brussels, my dissertation will question the ways in which smaller European cultural centers approached new music, fostered cosmopolitan attitudes, and established identities distinct from those of such dominant international cities as Paris, London, and Vienna. 

I will develop a nuanced view of the ways in which four key members of the Belgian cultural elite approached musical modernism. The process of cross-cultural exchange, the definition and redefinition of musical modernism, and the challenge of constructing national identity were particularly important during the interwar period. Paul Collaer, Henry Le Bœuf, Corneil de Thoran, and Queen Élisabeth each responded to these cultural and political forces through their support of the newest in music. Through the examination of primary sources, considerations of the work of these four figures will challenge traditional conceptions of constructing nationalism, and contribute to current discussions in musicology of processes of cross-cultural exchange, cultural appropriation, and cosmopolitanism. My dissertation will also enrich current understanding of the role of patrons, concert organizers, and institutional directors in the circulation of new music, and offer an important view of the coexistence of competing sets of aesthetic values that complicates current discourse on musical modernism. 

Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award

 

Dr. Hughes is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Music, Theater, and Film department of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on how people used music to construct and expresses identity during the twentieth century. Her dissertation research on musical culture in Brussels between 1880 and 1960 forms a core of this research work.

Pruett Fellow, 2010