The research strategy of the Department of Musicology at the IAH CAS is focused on areas related to the history and theory of Czech music. The department's main long-term goal – the preparation of the collective monograph History of Music in the Czech Lands – involves collaborative activity carried out in association with other departments and research centres at the IAH CAS. This monograph will gradually materialize in partial, individual projects. These projects are focused on research into musical culture within the geographical and historical framework of the Czech lands, and its interpretation from the perspective of the changing social, cultural, economic, denominational and institutional context, with the obvious considerations of the broader European context.
Last three years have seen the realization of several partial projects in the framework of the Strategy AV21 programme. These included the conference The Prague Mozart’s Villa Bertramka in the Light of Unknown German Sources from 1925 and 1942 (Milada Jonášová), entailing as its output the publication Die Villa Bertramka. Facetten der Geschichte einer Mozart-Gedenkstätte in Prag / The Villa Bertramka. Facets of the History of a Mozart Memorial in Prague, a volume containing papers from the conference plus an exhibition catalogue Within the framework of the AV21 Strategy, the department carried out several partial projects. In the programme Memory in the Digital Age, Václav Kapsa continued digitisation and online display of the catalogues of composer’s works pertaining to the musical culture of Czech lands. The project also enabled further work on and additions to the already published thematic catalogues of works by composers Josef Brentner and Antonín Reichenauer, and a new publishing of another catalogue – Černohorský, dedicated to a geographically and temporally corresponding repertoire. Our extended website was given a new title Catalogues and Inventories of the Music in Czech Lands and enriched with a section dedicated to historical musical inventories. The project focused on Women in Czech Musical Culture in the Nineteenth Century combined in its supplementary programme an international online workshop with a concert featuring songs, duets and piano pieces by 19th-century women composers. A book dealing with this particular subject is currently under preparation. In the programme Resilient Society. Identity Concepts in the Czech Cultural Life in Times of Crises, Anja Bunzel organized a workshop During the Nineteenth Century the Czech Lands Witnessed a Number of Crises. Two members of the department – Aleš Opekar and David Vondráček – are involved as co-researchers in the project Art – Gesture – Argument, run by the Institute for Czech Literature, focused on artworks or events in the interwar period which sparked off public debate.
With support from the Commission for Regional Cooperation between the Czech Regions and Institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and in the framework of the annual Festival of Baroque Art in Český Krumlov, Milada Jonášová has been organizing international musicological conferences on Italian opera in Bohemia during the 18th century, on subjects which have so far included: 2019 - Il Demofoonte as a Subject for Dramma per Musica: Johann Adolf Hasse and Other Composers of the 18th Century; 2020 – Italian Opera: Between Original and Pasticcio; 2021 – Opera as a Festive Event.
With support from the Czech Ministry of Culture, an online international musicological conference was held dealing with Current Issues of Mozart Research III. The grant programme International Cooperation of Early-Career Researchers conducted by the Czech Academy of Sciences, opened the first year of research into the topic Media Representation of Musical Women in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (Anja Bunzel).
Over the last three years, members of the Department have contributed in the making of the following publications:
Milada Jonášová (ed.), Tre opere su Don Giovanni per Praga: Caldara 1730 – Righini 1776 – Mozart 1787, collana: L'opera italiana nei territori boemi durante il Settecento IV., Praga 2019 (co-editor Tomislav Volek).
Anja Bunzel (ed.), Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century, Woodbridge: Boydell, 2019 (co-editor Natasha Loges).
Anja Bunzel, The Songs of Johanna Kinkel: Genesis, Reception, Context, Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020.
Milada Jonášová (ed.), Aktuelle Fragen der Mozart-Forschung II. Bericht über den Prager Mozart-Kongress 2018 (Mozart Studien 27), Wien: Hollitzer Verlag, 2020 (co-editors Manfred Hermann Schmid, Tomislav Volek).
Milada Jonášová (ed.), Demofoonte come soggetto per il dramma per musica: Johann Adolf Hasse ed altri compositori del Settecento, collana: Lʼopera italiana nei territori boemi durante il Settecento V., Praga 2020 (co-editor Tomislav Volek).
Milada Jonášová (ed.), Die Villa Bertramka. Facetten der Geschichte einer Mozart-Gedenkstätte in Prag / The Villa Bertramka. Facets of the History of a Mozart Memorial in Prague, Praha: Artefactum, 2020 (co-editor Manfred Hermann Schmid).
Milada Jonášová (ed.), Mozarts “Idomeneo” (Mozart Studien 28), Wien: Hollitzer Verlag, 2021 (koeditor Manfred Hermann Schmid).
Václav Kapsa, Joseph Brentner. A Catalogue of His Works (Brk), Antonín Reichenauer. A Catalogue of His Works (Rk), Ústav dějin umění AV ČR 2019–2021, online edition in English and Czech, continuously updated, open access https://brentner.katalog-skladeb.cz/
Václav Kapsa (ed.), Carolus Pelicanus, Adoro te devote, Ad festa venite (Fontes Musicae in Polonia C/XX), Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Sub Lupa, 2020.
Václav Kapsa (ed.), Joannes Possival, Litaniae lauretanae sub titulo Consolatrix afflictorum (Fontes Musicae in Polonia C/XV), Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Sub Lupa, 2020.
Václav Kapsa (ed.): Carolus Rabovius (1619–1686). O Domine Jesu, Salutemus Matrem, Surgamus eamus properemus (Fontes Musicae in Polonia C/XXVI), Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Sub Lupa, 2021.
Václav Kapsa (ed.), Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner. Duchovní árie II / Sacred Arias II, Praha: Artefactum, 2021.
David Vondráček (ed.): The East, the West, and the In-Between in Music, München: Allitera, 2021.
David Vondráček: Jaroslav Ježek zwischen Avantgarde und Jazz, München: Allitera, 2021.
The musicology department incorporates the editorial board of the specialized musicological journal Hudební věda Musicology.
