We cordially invite you to the lecture from the cycle Dialogo della musica, which will be given by Matthew Gelbart (New York, Praha) on the topic of Antonín Dvořák in Czech and International Musical Canons.
The lecture will take place on Tuesday, May 27, 2025 at 5 pm in the Musicological library IAH, Puškinovo nám. 9, Prague 6.
Whether to uphold it or attack it, commentators have often spoken of “the Western canon” of music (as in other arts). Other commentators have stressed the existence of “multiple canons” simultaneously. Dvořák makes an interesting example of a composer who shows the power of both of these concepts and – most importantly – how they interact with each other, since shaping and enforcing any canon is a dynamic exercise in authority and community-building. As there are multiple international canons in conversation against each other, so there are multiple and changing Czech musical canons: from rival historiographical camps to enduring traditions in elementary school textbooks, from university discourse to concert stages. Furthermore, there are often rifts between what people think they “should” know and what they actually listen to across social classes, ethnic groups, and beyond. This talk follows Dvořák’s music through the intersections and disconnections between these different layers.
Matthew Gelbart is a professor of music at Fordham University in New York. He is the author of two books: The Invention of “Folk Music” and “Art Music”: Emerging Categories from Ossian to Wagner (Cambridge University Press, 2007), as well as Musical Genre and Romantic Ideology: Belonging in the Age of Originality (Oxford University Press, 2022). He has also published numerous articles and chapters on 19th-century European music and 20th-century popular music. His work is united by an interest in how we make sense of music through categories and identities.