Die List der Vergangenheit: Musikwissenschaft, Rundfunk und Deutschlandbezug in Italien, 1890–1945

Traditions are cunning: by claiming to tell about what has happened, they create strong collective identities, often of national character. At the same time, they represent the result of a perspective distortion: Not the past, but only what can serve the goals of the present from it, is told by them. How does music fit into this process? Using Italian musical discourse as an example, this study examines the role of musicology and broadcasting in the invention and communication of a new Italian national musical tradition at the end of the 19th century: Designed in a narrower, negative relation to the construct of a German music, this new tradition was able to serve different political projects and conceptions of nationhood between about 1890 and 1945.