Beginning in 15th century Italy, the polychoral musical performance practice and new compositional developments in church music required the modification of venerable churches and the integration of music spaces in new sacred buildings. This multifaceted change correlated with the rite and mass piety and enduringly affected the experience of liturgy and music. The most distinctive impact of this progress is epitomised by the installation of singer balconies and organ galleries on which top-class music ensembles and organists often performed and which served as stages for musical excellence. The permanent display of music advanced to become a core segment of sacred architecture while the potential of these spaces to promote identification becomes evident in numerous graffiti, as the singer pulpit in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican exemplifies.

The conference explores the complex interdependencies between architecture, acoustics, musical performance practice and rite in the interdisciplinary discourse between musicology, art and architecture history. The congress is organised by the research project “CANTORIA. Music and Sacred Architecture” (Mainz) and the German Historical Institute in Rome in cooperation with the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana and the Biblioteca Vallicelliana. A lecture-concert in S. Maria in Vallicella with polychoral Roman church music of the 17th century will prove the interrelation of music, architecture and acoustics at an authentic space.

Programme

Wednesday, 11 December 2019
Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Salone Borromini

3.00 pm: Paola Paesano (Director of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana): Welcome

3.15 pm: Klaus Pietschmann | Tobias C. Weißmann (Mainz): Introduction

I. Bases: Music, Liturgy, Architecture
Chair: Klaus Pietschmann | Tobias C. Weißmann (Mainz)

3.30 pm: Sabine Ehrmann-Herfort (Rome): Cantoria – coretto – palco? Zur Terminologie kirchenmusikalischer Aufführungsorte in der Frühen Neuzeit

4.15 pm: Jörg Bölling (Hildesheim): ‚ex qua omnes exemplum sumere debent’. Zur vor- und nachtridentinischen Rezeption von Liturgie, Musik und Architektur der ’cappella papalis’

5.00 pm: Joseph Clarke (Toronto): Clamours in Print: Theorizing Echo in Early Modern Church Architecture

5.45 pm: Aperitivo -
S. Maria in Vallicella

Lecture-Concert

8.30 pm: Florian Bassani (Bern) | Christian Rohrbach (Mainz): La musica policorale a Roma nella prima età moderna

9.00 pm: Concert by Barock Vokal – College for Ancient Music, University of Music Mainz: Musica vespertina a doppio coro del primo Seicento romano: Francesco Severi, Domenico e Virgilio Mazzocchi

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Thursday, 12 December 2019
German Historical Institute in Rome

9.00 am: Alexander Koller (Vicedirector of the German Historical Institute in Rome): Welcome

II. Rome: Centre of Innovation
Chair: Richard Erkens (Rome)

9.15 am: Noel O’ Regan (Edinburgh): Architecture, Acoustics and performance practice in Roman confraternity oratories in the early modern period

10.00 am: Martin Raspe (Rome): Wo sang Palestrina auf der Baustelle von Neu-Sankt Peter?

10.45 am: Coffee break

11.15 am: Tobias C. Weißmann (Mainz): Präsentieren vs. Verstecken. Architektonische Inszenierung musikalischer Performanz und die Verbotspolitik der Päpste

12.00 am: Florian Bassani (Bern): Das ‚Ende der Mehrchörigkeit’ – Eine musikalische Stilwende und ihre baulichen Folgen

12.45 am: Lunch break

III. Audio-visual Performance in Theory and Practice
Chair: Teresa Gialdroni (Rome)

2.30 pm: Roberta Vidic (Hamburg): (Re)compositional strategies and sonic architecture in Palestrina’s, Anerio’s and Soriano’s Missa Papae Marcelli

3.15 pm: Emanuel Signer (Cambridge): ‚to be performed together or apart'. Sacred space and instructive paratext in sacred music books printed in Italy c. 1580–1640

4.00 pm: Coffee break

4.30 pm: Federico Bellini (Camerino): The design of the music-space in Roman Baroque churches and oratories

Keynote Lecture

6.00 pm: Deborah Howard (Cambridge): Voices from Heaven: Singing from on High in Venetian Churches in the Cinquecento

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Friday, 13 December 2019
German Historical Institute in Rome

IV. Polychorality and Architectural Staging as a European Phenomenon
Chair: Vitale Zanchettin (Venice/Rome)

9.00 am: Massimo Bisson (Venice): Architettura e spazi per la musica nelle chiese veneziane: tradizioni, resistenze e innovazioni nella prima età moderna

9:45 am: Elisabeth Natour (Regensburg): ‚Celebrating 'Apollo's solemnities?' Der Streit um die Sängerkanzel in Durham im Kontext der Neugestaltung des anglikanischen Kirchenraums, ca. 1620–1640

10.30 am: Coffee break

11.00 am: Simon Paulus (Stuttgart): ‚damit nicht nur der Laut deutlich unter die Zuhörenden falle’. Musik, Raum und Klang im protestantischen Kirchenbau ab 1600

11.45 am: Anne Holzmüller (Freiburg i. Br.): ‚Töne aus einer unsichtbaren Region'. Über einige protestantische Nachbildungen römischer Klangarchitektur im 18. Jahrhundert

12.30 am: Lunch break

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Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Sala Barberini

3.00 pm: José Tolentino Cardinal Calaça de Mendonça (Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church):
Welcome

V. Collegium Cantorum and Singer Pulpit of the Sistine Chapel
Chair: Alexander Koller (Rome)

3.15 pm: Presentation of the cataloging project „Chorbücher der Cappella Sistina“, Central Office of Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM)

3.30 pm: Arnold Nesselrath (Berlin/Rome): Die Sängerkanzel der Sixtinischen Kapelle in der Typologie der Musikeremporen

4.15 pm: Klaus Pietschmann (Mainz): Das identitätsstiftende Potential der cantorie. Graffitti in Sängerkanzeln der Frühen Neuzeit

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Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Salone Sistino

5.00 pm: Final discussion and presentation of the exhibited music manuscripts

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Saturday, 14 December 2019
Apostolic Palace

9.00 am: For active conference participants only