Journey in Music: Journey in Space and Time

Abstract.

Long before mass tourism, there was travel. Travel was always associated with discoveries. While most people spent their lives in the same place, travelling only in spirit, musicians tended to travel not only for performances or due to the quest for a position but also for the purpose of learning from other musicians, as with Johann Sebastian Bach who in 1705 requested four weeks’ leave for a study trip to study with master organist Dietrich Buxtehude. One hundred years later, the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka undertook numerous journeys to foreign countries, which permitted him to become acquainted with various musical languages and styles. The list of musical works which have to do with travel through space and time is endless. The program presented at the conference was devoted to only a few facets of the repertoire: the longing and decisiveness of the wanderer in Schubert; a retrospective by Schulhoff on the fate of the pianist Otakar Hollmann, who lost his right arm in the First World War; and the tragedy and transfiguration of Shostakovich, who wrote his important Second Piano Sonata while under forced evacuation during the Second World War.

“Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust” (Wandering is the miller’s dream) Franz Schubert, “Die schöne Müllerin”