Archival Notes

Introduction

2025-08-06T15:31:01+02:00

The introductory chapter aims to identify some of the key questions that have shaped the discourse on neoclassicism, while highlighting how the essays in the present issue can contribute to this discussion by broadening the perspective to include regions that have usually been overlooked and by means of new approaches based on digital tools for querying repertoires and databases – that, in recent years, have been reshaping the landscape of archival research.

Béla Bartók’s Turn to Neoclassicism in Light of His Social Commitment: Some Evidence from Archival Sources

2025-08-06T15:46:09+02:00

An active participant at events of the International Society for Contemporary Music, Béla Bartók became fully aware of neoclassicism by 1925. By 1926 he developed his new idiom in a series of piano pieces and the First Piano Concerto. His neoclassicism integrated a whole series of new elements from French and Italian baroque keyboard literature as well as re-evaluating J. S. Bach, Mozart, and even Beethoven as models. It continuously developed in works such as Cantata profana, Music for Strings Percussion, and Celesta, and the Solo Violin Sonata.

The article presents two archival documents, an undated written statement in Hungarian first published by László Somfai under the title ‘Bartók Béla nyilatkozata a “progresszív zenei alkotásokról” (1927–1928?)’ [Béla Bartók’s Statement about ‘Progressive Musical Works’ (1927–1928?)], and the heavily revised manuscript draft of ‘Béla Bartók’s Opinion on the Technical, Aesthetic and Spiritual Orientation of Contemporary Music’, written for La Revue Internationale de Musique in 1938 and included in Béla Bartók Essays (ed. by Benjamin Suchoff, 1976) in English translation. A close look at the manuscript reveals how central the social and political concerns were in Bartók’s thinking even about aesthetical questions raising the possibility that his stylistic turn to neoclassicism might also have been dictated by his sense of social responsibility.

Music Expectations in Soviet Russia: Tradition, Avant-Garde, and Legitimacy in the Soviet Public Press

2025-08-06T15:49:49+02:00

This paper looks at Soviet music journalism of the 1920s and early 1930s with the aim of highlighting the debate around the concept of Neoclassicism. Starting from a definition of the phenomenon as it emerged in the Western music landscape, it traces concepts semantically close to it in the writings of the most active advocates of modernism, who expressed their views on the pages of Sovremennaya muzïka (Contemporary music) – the bulletin of the homonymous Society based in Moscow.

The analysis of terms and concepts leads to the discussion of this debate as regards Western music aesthetics and the expectations of coeval music consumers in the USSR. In reference to the subsequent development of music life in the Soviet Union – with the elaboration of Socialist Realism and the raise of the accuse of formalism in the public discourse – the article enhances motives that passed on from the modernist discourse to the Proletarian camp.

Tracing ‘Neoclassicism’ in Norway: A Tentative Conceptual Survey

2025-08-06T17:05:53+02:00

This article examines the emergence and reception of ‘new-/neoclassicism’ in Norwegian musical discourse from the interwar period to the early post-war years. Drawing on the National Library of Norway’s “Digital Bookshelf,” a vast archive of digitized publications, the study adopts a conceptual-historical approach to trace how critical terms migrated from European cultural centres to Norway. It investigates when, where, and how terms like ‘new classical’ entered the national vocabulary, often via foreign correspondents and critics, whose usage reflected distinct aesthetic and political positions. During the 1920s and 1930s, Norwegian critics as well as composers grappled with national identity and cultural ambivalence toward German traditions. The article also explores how critics and lexicographers gradually adopted neoclassical terminology, shaped by evolving debates in newspapers and music journals. Ultimately, it argues that Norwegian neoclassicism evolved from the import of European stylistic trends into a localized synthesis of universal musical principles and national identity.

Neoclassic Objectivism Meets Catholic Ritual: The Musical Philosophy of Joseph Samson

2025-08-06T17:07:13+02:00

Catholicism, as is well known, had a significant place in the intellectual origins of Neoclassicism in interwar Paris, notably through the figure of Jacques Maritain. What about the other side of the relationship, the ramifications of Neoclassicism in Catholic art, including church music? A strain of austere impersonality goes back a long way in Catholic discourse on the aesthetics of religious art; how did this tradition relate to, and interact with, the anti-Romantic turn to ‘objectivity’ after the War? I consider that question through the writings of the choirmaster and composer Joseph Samson (1888–1957), whose voluminous writings and archive reveal a close attention to new ideas coming out of Paris. Samson’s conception of ritual ‘objectivity’ shows how closely the agendas of sacred music and Neoclassicism could coincide, while underscoring the multi-stranded complexity of anti-Romantic discourse in the interwar era.

Franco-German Identity Issues and the Use of the Expression ‘Return to Bach’ in the Interwar French Press

2025-08-06T17:08:08+02:00

This article examines the circulation and ideological weight of the expression ‘Return to Bach’ in the French press between 1918 and 1939, with a focus on its entanglement with neoclassicism and Franco-German identity dynamics. Drawing on a combined lexicometric and qualitative analysis of general, cultural, and musical periodicals, it investigates how this expression operated not only as an aesthetic marker but also as a cultural and political signifier. The “Return to Bach” enjoyed notable success in the late 1920s before experiencing a marked decline, eventually becoming a formula used with increasing irony and critical distance. By analysing references to composers and musicians such as Stravinsky, Koechlin, and Landowska, the study reveals the profound ambivalence characterizing the uses of this expression. It ultimately argues that the ‘Return to Bach’ helped construct a French-centred vision of universality, while marginalizing contemporary German contributions and reinforcing a selective narrative of musical heritage in interwar France.

Tracing the Neoclassical Casella: Compositional Projects, Models, Ideologies

2025-08-06T17:09:05+02:00

In 1913, well before neoclassicism became a historiographical label, Alfredo Casella jotted down in his sketchbook a plan for a ‘Divertimento’, then amended to ‘Concerto (or Serenata) in Italian Style’, for string quartet, winds, guitar and mandolin. On the same page appear orchestral settings of two patriotic poems by D’Annunzio: The Night of Caprera and Ode to Rome. Overshadowed by the atonal experiments of the war years, this long-cherished program only materialized a decade later, as the ‘Return to Order’ convinced Casella that the time was ripe for musical and national revival. This article retraces the lines of continuity between the early ‘modernist turmoil’ and the ‘classicist adjustment’, that coincided with the advent of Fascism. Drawing on unpublished sources from the Casella archive, the discussion explores how the composer negotiated the dialectic between revolution and reaction, European cosmopolitanism and cultural autarchy. To demonstrate the alignment between Casella’s aesthetic-ideological premises and the substance of his musical writing, two string quartet works are considered, both emblematic of his transition toward a ‘clarified style’: the Five Pieces, op. 34 (1920) and the Concerto, op. 40 (1923–24).

Neoclassicism, Nationalism and Modernism in the Spanish Reception of Manuel de Falla’s Works (1915–1939): Hemerography and Archival Sources

2025-08-06T17:11:17+02:00

This article explores the use and meaning of the terms Neoclassicism, New Classicism, and Modern Classicism in the context of early 20th-century Spanish music, particularly during the Silver Age (1900–1936). Following the 1898 political crisis, this period witnessed a profound cultural transformation marked by efforts to modernize and to redefine Spain’s artistic trajectory in light of World War I. Spanish intellectuals and artists navigated between a desire for European integration and a renewed emphasis on national traditions, giving rise to the movement known as Novecentismo. The article focuses on how the idea of Neoclassicism emerged from this context, interpreted as a synthesis of European modernism and Spanish identity, often shaped by French cultural narratives. Rather than analysing Manuel de Falla’s works – El retablo de Maese Pedro and the Concerto – from a purely musicological perspective, this study examines how these compositions were framed, interpreted, and ideologically constructed through contemporary Spanish music criticism. It demonstrates how critics projected national identity and artistic modernity by positioning Spain within a peripheral yet dialogic relationship to French and broader European modernism.