Masonry and Music at the Turn of the 18th and 19th century
Through many musical examples, the lecutre wants to bring the influence of Freemasonry on culture closer, especially on the music in Moravia during Josephinism and the time of the Napoleonic Wars. We will follow the echoes of these questions during the Biedermeier period and under Metternich absolutism. We are based on the research results of Josef Haubelt and Jiří Kroupa, specifically books called České osvícenství (Haubelt, Prague 1986), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart v jasu svobodného zednářství (Haubelt, Praha 2006) and Alchymie štěstí: Pozdní osvícenství a moravská společnost 1770–1810 (Kroupa, Brno 2006).
Primarily, we will observe the penetration of freemasonry into music through the prism of the most important representatives of W. A. Mozart, A. Salieri and P. Vranický. We will note the influence of Freemasonry among the Liechtensteins and the Haugwitzes based on the musical materials that were mostly described and discovered only from the 1970s onwards.
The lecture aims to address the specific situation and influence of freemasonry in Moravia and attempts to describe and capture the difference between the course of this process and the situation in Bohemia.
