28th International Symposium “Beethoven and Great Poetry” | 7-8.04.2025
On 7-8 April 2025, the Department of Music Theory and Interpretation of the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków is organising the 28th International Musicological Symposium accompanying the 29th edition of the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival. The theme of this year’s edition is ‘Beethoven and Great Poetry’.
The main focus of the research will be the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, but also the works of great European composers for whom the poetic word was either a source of inspiration or was even aligned with music. In addition to strictly Beethoven-related topics, there will also be papers on related subjects, such as the relationship between poetry and music, between word and sound, German, European and Polish poetry. There will also be papers on 20th century Polish music.
Originator and scientific director of the project: Prof. dr hab. Teresa Malecka
Scientific secretary and project coordinator: Magdalena Chrenkoff
Programme of the 28th International Symposium
Beethoven and Great Poetry
Zachęta – National Art Gallery
Warsaw, Małachowski Square 3
April 7‒8, 2025
Monday, April 7th
Zachęta – National Art Gallery
Warsaw, Małachowski Square 3
10:00 Welcome of the guests
- Elżbieta Penderecka – director general of the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival
- Dr hab. Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, prof. AMKP – head of the Department of Music Theory and Interpretation of the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków
- Agnieszka Pindera – director of „Zachęta” National Art Gallery
10:30-11:50 Chair: dr hab. Agnieszka Draus, prof. AMKP
Robert Hatten (The University of Texas in Austin)
Beethoven’s Interpretation of Schiller’s Verses for the Ninth Symphony Finale: The Exemplification, Embodiment, and Enactment of a Poetic Conceit
Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz (AMKP)
The Imperative of the Word. On the Idea of Bildung in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Helmut Loos (Universität Leipzig)
The Overwhelming of Music by Literature and Philosophy. Beethoven and the Consequences
11:50-12:10 Break
12:10-13:30 Chair: prof. Helmut Loos
Michael Spitzer (University of Liverpool)
Beethoven and Three Poets: Hölderlin, Wordsworth, T.S. Eliot
Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen)
Beethoven and Scandinavian Poets
Katarzyna Szymańska-Stułka (Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, Warsaw)
Beethoven and Shakespeare – the Topos of Tempest
13:30–13:50 Break
13:50–14:50 Chair: dr hab. Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz, prof. AMKP
Małgorzata Grajter (The Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music in Łódź)
Beethoven, Schubert and Others: Erlkönig by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the Musical Settings by Classical and Early Romantic Composers
Roman Ivanovitch (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Mozart’s Ave verum corpus: The Temporality and Technique of Crisis
Tuesday, April 8th
Zachęta – National Art Gallery
Warsaw, Małachowski Square 3
10:00-11:00 Chair: prof. Michael Spitzer
Michael Heinemann (Hochschule Karl Maria von Weber Dresden)
Lost Illusions. Beethoven in the Novels of Thomas Mann
Joan Grimalt (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya)
Poetry and Hermeneutic Analysis. Fidelio: Second Finale
11:00-11:20 Break
11:20-12:40 Chair prof. Robert Hatten
Iwona Sowińska-Fruhtrunk (AMKP)
Schoenberg’s Book of the Hanging Gardens as the Last Great Song Cycle for Stefan Georgie’s Poetry
Marcin Trzęsiok (Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, Katowice)
Samuel Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915. On the Sublime in the Democratic Era
Susana Zapke (Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien)
Music is the greatest non-sense of all. Elfriede Jelinek’s Lieder, 1965-1966
12:40-13:00 Break
13:00-14:20 Chair: prof. dr hab. Teresa Malecka
Ilona Iwańska (AMKP)
“The Voice of True Song.” R.M. Rilke’s Poetry in Polish Vocal Lyric after World War II
Agnieszka Draus (AMKP)
‘Witnesses to matters of the spirit’. Rilke, Stachowski, Penderecki
DISCUSSION