Music | Europeana Blog

Laments and longing: folk music and emigration

Migration and music are intrinsically linked, mirroring the movement of people from place to place and country to country. This blog looks at how folk music has reflected migration, introducing examples from Ireland, Greece and Portugal.

From the New World: Czech maestro Antonín Dvořák’s American music

Czech composer Antonín Dvořák brought his sensibility and musical genius from his homeland to the United States.

From Russia with love: Misia Sert, queen of Paris

Misia Sert was one of the most intriguing and influential women in Belle Époque Paris, a muse and confidant to many of the iconic artists and composers of the time.

Queen of Arts: Christina of Sweden’s Roman reign

Anyone who wanted to see the musical avant-garde at work around 1600 went south of the Alps. With figureheads such as Monteverdi, Peri and Caccini and their work in the new opera genre, Italy pioneered an innovative repertoire and ‘modern’ styles and became the mecca for musicians in the early days of the baroque era. […]

From Georg Friedrich to George Frideric: Händel’s miraculous migration

In the early 18th century, London was the eldorado for musicians, offering fame and fortune to anyone who had something new or exclusive to boast. Foreign musicians were regarded as exotic, special and prestigious, and therefore very popular both with rich patrons and the general public.

Percy Grainger: shanties, folksongs and letters to Grieg

This blog tells the story of how digitisation for cultural heritage institutions can bring collections of material back together again, after over a century of separation. These collections concern the Australian-born composer and pianist, Percy Grainger. The first collection comprises the recordings of British folksongs and sea shanties that Percy Grainger made onto wax cylinder […]

César Franck: the “Pater Seraphicus” of modern French music

On this International Migrants’ Day, Sofie Taes, musicologist & co-curator of the Europeana Photography Collection for PHOTOCONSORTIUM/KU Leuven, zooms in on the life and work of a brave Belgian who altered the course of French music history. In the twilight of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), in which it led significant losses against Germany, France explored […]

The Harry Orvomaa collection of Jewish recordings

Each month, Europeana Music invites a guest curator to talk about a musical subject and highlight some of the material on Europeana Music. For the month of October, Pekka Gronow presents the Harry Orvomaa collection of Jewish recordings. Now retired, Pekka was one of the founders of the Finnish Institute for Recorded Sound and adjunct […]

In the footsteps of the 1946 Ogooué-Congo Mission

Every month, Europeana Music is curated by a guest contributor, highlighting the wide variety of music that exists in Europeana. This month, Europeana Music marks the launch of the online exhibition, “In the footsteps of the 1946 Ogooué-Congo Mission” looking at the fieldwork carried out across the former Middle-Congo (now the Republic of the Congo, […]

The Music of Machines

Every month, Europeana Music invites a guest curator to look at a particular area of music. This month, our guest is Greg Markus from Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The everyday sounds are the ones that soundtrack our lives and have simply since humans developed ears and the capacity to listen. Europeana offers thousands […]

Stories of a seducer – Mozart, the myth of Don Juan and his literary impact

Each month, Europeana Music examines a particular theme from the world of music. For the month of July , Gabriele Fröschl from the Österreichische Mediathek takes a look at the character of Don Juan as portrayed in Mozart’s opera and elsewhere. The legend of Don Juan is one of the most famous stories in […]

The hurdy-gurdy in Schubert’s “Winterreise”

For the month of April, Europeana Music is focusing on the beginning of spring. Or more accurately, the end of winter. Or more accurately still, the end of “Winterreise” (“Winter’s Journey”): Schubert’s song cycle, which he wrote towards the very end of his life and the instrument that features in it. The very last song […]

Kalimba, Lukembe and Ennanga: the musical instruments of Africa

This month, we take a look at musical instruments of Africa. These are well represented on Europeana Music, thanks to the wide and varied records from Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO). This blog gives just a glimpse into some of the different types of instruments that can be found in Africa. Lamellaphones This type of […]

Access easily sounds from Europeana Sounds Collections!

By navigating through the above feature, you now have an easy and single access point to the material the Europeana Sounds consortium shared with you during the last two years and a half! Whether you are interested in non Western classical music, spoken word performance recordings or sound effect recordings, come and browse to find […]

Uncovering Ethnomusicology on Europeana Music Collections

The Music Collections of this month is focused on anthropology and its links with sounds and music studies, in France and in the world.

Viva Verdi! The composer beyond the music

Verdi as a composer, Verdi and the Italian Risorgimento, Verdi as a farmer, Verdi in the movies, Verdi as national icon… How many performers can boast such a wide impact on fields other than the music? His portrait is everywhere: paintings, caricatures, postcards, stamps, dishes, cups, banknotes, …