Roxane Lindlacher
| Department | Department of Art History, Musicology and Dance Studies |
| PhD Supervisor | Univ.-Prof. Dr. Nils Grosch |
| PhD Co-Supervisor | Univ.-Prof. Dr. Carolin Stahrenberg (Linz) |
| Start | WiSe 2024 |
| Contact | |
| Theme/Title | Staging the body. Performances von Gender, Ethnicity, Age und Ability in Notenausgaben populärer Musik aus den Jahren 1930 bis 1950 in Österreich und Deutschland |
Abstract
Significant growth in the production of popular music can be observed during the first half of the 20th century. Music was composed and published in ever-increasing quantities, and produced as phonograph records—as well as presented on stage, in film, and on the radio—fostering the formation of intermedial and international networks that facilitated the widespread dissemination of popular music within people’s cultural lives. The high status popular music had thus attained in the daily lives of societies during the Weimar Republic (or the First Republic in Austria) persisted even after the NSDAP seized power in Germany and the rise of Austrofascism in Austria. Fascist regimes quickly recognized the potential for all-encompassing propaganda and public entertainment offered by influencing the production of popular music.
One aspect that has always been of great importance in popular music is the body. It is addressed and staged across the various media involved in popular music production—whether in the songs themselves, in dance, on stage, through the voice, or in the printed sheet music of popular hits (*Schlager*). This last area of bodily representation, in particular, offers a multifaceted approach to examining how the body is portrayed—for instance, through illustrations, song lyrics, or the dance styles associated with these hits. For the National Socialist government, the body was a central element of its ideological program, serving as a focal point for discourses on racial policy, exclusion versus community, and gender roles. Consequently, numerous editions of sheet music for popular hits—in which the body plays a role—sit at the intersection of ideology and the music industry.
This dissertation examines popular music sheet music editions as composite media forms that reveal how bodies were represented, staged, and negotiated within the discourses of the 1930–1950 period. It aims to demonstrate—particularly with regard to gender, ethnicity, age, and ability—how cultural figurations and stereotypes manifest in these materials. The study investigates the extent to which the staging of bodies was shaped by ideological influences and the degree to which the music industry was still able to orient itself freely toward market forces. Ultimately, the body lies at the heart of the dissertation; embedded within the media, political, and ideological contexts of the era, it is interpreted as a text to be deciphered. To this end, the study draws upon and critically analyzes extensive sheet music collections held by the AKM Archive at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, the Austrian National Library, and the Center for Popular Culture and Music in Freiburg.
Foto: © Roxane Lindlacher
