Event Information:

• Fri

  16

  Jul

  2021

  Translating Music?

  Würzburg, virtual

  Interdisciplinary Roundtable with Dr. Anna Piotrowska live and online—that is, in a hybrid and family-friendly form.

  In an open discussion atmosphere, Dr. Piotrowska set forth her conception of musical translation and applied it to processes which in music theory are classically subsumed under transfer, adaption, or appropriation, an approach represented by Prof. Dr. Andreas Haug of Würzburg in the role of responder.

  Productive exchange on the possibilities of translating music and translating with music followed. The discussion revolved in part around qualifying the catch-all phrase ‘music as a universal language’ because, as Dr. Astrid Dröse and Dr. Sara Springfield showed in their SPP project on song translation, melodies frequently adapt to cultural contexts. On the other hand, the participants also critically reflected on the term ‘non-translatability’. Within this context, paratexts proved to play a role in music translation as well—a role whose importance is still frequently underestimated.