Elena Abramov-van Rijk, Twelfth-Century Carved Music Scenes in the Grossmünster of Zurich.

The Grossmünster in Zurich includes three musical scenes carved into its architectonical details (ca. 1100/1150): King David playing rebec at the northern portal, a group of three musicians in the presbytery, and the female acrobat and the crwth-player in the cloister. Whereas King David’s scene is quite conventional, also from the viewpoint of the musical instrument he plays (rebec), the other two scenes feature two rather exotic instruments. The wind instrument, played by one of the three musicians, is a rare and very early representation of an instrument made of tree bark. The instrument that accompanied the female acrobat is a distorted representation of the crwth, which is unlikely to be seen in the given geographical region.

† Dorothea Baumann & Brigite Bachmann-Geiser (Zürich), Music-Related Visual Objects in Switzerland before 1650: A Research Project of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, School of Music.

The research project conducted at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, School of Music between December 2012 to December 2013, documented for the first time music-related images in the territory of Switzerland, created before 1650. The images of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which reflect music performance practice, enriched the broad collection of medieval and pre-Reformist objects of arts and crafts related to the religious context and topics. Changes in the appearance of the most typical topics could be followed, for instance, in such figurative representations as King David with the harp surrounded by his court musicians, minstrels, dancers, and fools; the Dance of Salome; the 24 Elders and angels with musical instruments in the Majestas Domini with the enthroned Christ in a mandorla; the musician-angels typical in the depiction of the birth of Christ and the coronation of the Virgin since the twelfth century; and the scenes of the Last Judgment, with their contrast between the blessed and the damned. Other topics document the continuation of ancient scenes traditionally related to music such as the Sirens and Muses, Orpheus among the animals, and, from the fifteenth century, the Dance of Death, featuring musical instruments.

Stephen A. Bergquist (Boston), Women Musicians: Ten Portraits.

In a world in which until recent times women were mostly confined to domestic roles, music was the branch of the arts where they achieved the greatest prominence. Singing, with the rise of opera, provided the most opportunities for women, but over the last three hundred years there have been many notable instrumentalists, teachers, and composers as well. Arabella Hunt (1662–1705), a singer and lutenist at the English court, is the subject of a mezzotint by John Smith produced immediately after her death. Françoise Journet (1675–1722), the leading soprano at the Paris Opéra for about fifteen years, is depicted in an anonymous, undated portrait probably done during the latter part of her career. In 1777 Giuseppe Marchi, who worked in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s studio, did a mezzotint portrait of Princess Izabela Czartoryska (1746–1835), one of the most important figures in the cultural life of Poland in the eighteenth century, and an amateur composer. Marie-Thérèse Davout (1766–1818), who used the stage name “Mlle. Maillard,” was the leading soprano at the Paris Opéra in the years just prior to the Revolution; she appears in an anonymous engraved portrait from about 1784. Sophie Gail (1775–1819), a singer, pianist, and composer of one-act operas, was the subject of a lithographic portrait done the year of her death by Jean-Baptiste Isabey. Three of the great singers of the nineteenth century, the sopranos Angelica Catalani (1780–1849) and Henriette Sontag (1806–1854) and the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot-García (1821–1910), appear in portraits by Friedrich Fleischmann, Pierre-Roch Vigneron, and Achille Devéria. The violinist Teresa Milanollo (1827–1904), almost unknown today, began her concert career at age eight, and toured Europe to highly laudatory reviews until she retired in 1857, when she married; in 1841 Marie-Alexandre Alophe did a lithographic portrait of her. The pioneering harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (1879– 1959) is the subject of a 1917 etching by Emil Orlik.

Silvia Bruni & Nico Staiti (Università di Bologna), Mourning with Frame Drum and Harp in a Fourteenth-Century Persian Manuscript: Historical Background and Ethnographic Evidence.

The third volume of the Bodleian Library’s manuscript of Kitāb-i Samak ʿAyyār (Ouseley 381) a Persian illustrated novel dating no later than the fourteenth century, depicts a mourning scene with two female musicians playing the harp and frame drum on folio 191b. This exceptional document allows for a better understanding of the relationship between literary, figurative, and ethnographic sources from different eras, in a wide area encompassing the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The analysis of the story depicted in the manuscript and the relationship between text and illustrations provides a context for Ouseley 381 within the vast and intertwined history of oral storytelling accompanied by illustrated scenes and the traditions of ritualized weeping accompanied by musical instruments.

Silvia Bruni (Università di Bologna), Leather Strips, Cowrie Shells, and Decorative Inscriptions: A Moroccan Lute at the 1888 Bologna Exhibition.

At the Mostra Internazionale di Musica, held during the Esposizione Emiliana in the Palazzo della Musica in Bologna, in 1888, there was exhibited a Gnawa lute from Morocco. The instrument was sent by Achille Petri (1854–1926), an Italian entrepreneur who arrived in Tangier in the 1880s and founded there the maritime shipping company Ditta Achille Petri. With the lute, Petri also sent the two end-blown flutes (qasba), a small two-string guitar (gunbrī) with a resonator made from a tortoise shell, and a circular single-skin frame drum (bendir). All five instruments are now housed at the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica in Bologna.
The lute is 71 cm long, with the soundboard 34 cm in length and 14.2 cm in width. The resonator is made from hollowed walnut wood, and the harmonic plane is made from camel skin. The instrument is a smaller version of the Gnawa gunbrī, called ʿawīsha (literally “little ʿAisha”), a name that refers to a female spirit, Lalla ʿAisha, whose characteristics are well-known throughout Morocco. The ʿawīsha is still in use in Morocco, exclusively in healing practices related to Jewish spirits, known collectively as sibtiyīn (“those of the Sabbath” or “Sabbath spirits”), and they are invoked in a specific rite, līla sebtiya or “Jewish night.” The uniqueness of this instrument lies in the drawings and inscriptions on the leather covering the resonator. Most of the decorations, made with henna, are reddish with shades ranging from yellow to brown, or black, likely done with ink. The central section presents a series of drawings and writings that suggest religious, symbolic, and spiritual meanings presumably associated with this instrument or the contexts in which it was used. The morphological characteristics, the drawings on the instrument, and the context of its use suggest that the lute was played in ritual contexts and used for therapeutic practices that combine various religious, cultural, musical, and ritual identities present in Morocco.

Anna Gandossi-Boshnakova (Sheridan College), Attic Vases with Implied Melodies.

The late Archaic and Classical Greek painters emphasized the storyline in their compositions concerning musical context by supplementing music-related visual narratives with inscriptions symbolizing a melody. These visual compositions, produced between the late sixth century BCE and the mid-fourth century BCE, represent songs with lyrics and different sounds associated with specific musical instruments or singing, and even experiment with faux musical notation. Some of the inscriptions incorporated into their musical narratives contain meaningful words, while others consist of misspelled, repetitive, or nonsensical combinations of letters that lack linguistic meaning. However, their iconic purpose stems from their position within the musical context. By employing these visual cues, painters engage the viewer’s imagination to follow the narrative thread, inviting them to perceive the implied melodies evoking a sense of the performance’s continuous and dynamic nature.
Considering the rich symbolic language of artistic expression and different painter’s approaches used to illustrate and record the invisible flow of the melodies, the series of Attic Vases with Implied Melodies include fifty-two vases attributed to thirty- seven painters, which are grouped in two classes: five categories in Class A show implied melodies associated with singing accompanied by musical instruments; four categories in Class B follow the artistic representations of implied melodies, suggesting the use of faux musical notation and offering possible visual evidence of early recording practices among professional musicians of that period.
Although no music documents predating the third century BCE have survived, the depictions on vases offer indirect evidence of notation practices within the musicians’ guild. The shown musical papyri were narrower, smaller, and horizontally oriented, contrasting with the dimensions of literary papyri.
The appendix includes a list of the painters who contributed to this artistic tradition, providing critical insights into the coexistence of oral traditions and musical literacy.

Standley Howell (Chicago), Inspiration and Tuning in Medieval David Iconography.

The idea that King David was inspired by God to compose the psalms is already present in the Old Testament and was developed further in early Christian Psalter prefaces. Eighth-century Western portraits of David began to use visual symbols, such as a nimbus around David’s head or a dove representing the Holy Spirit, to remind viewers of his divine inspiration. From the late ninth century, these elements were supplemented by depictions of David tuning a stringed instrument. This image reflected an emerging concept that sounding music, accurately tuned to a diatonic Pythagorean scale, could make the harmony of the spheres audible to humans.
Late in the tenth century, manuscript art began to extend David’s inspiration to his four choir leaders by showing them playing instruments capable of generating accurate Pythagorean intervals: the organ, monochord, bell chime, and hurdy-gurdy. Contemporary discussions of these instruments indicate that they functioned primarily to teach monastic choirs how to sing according to Pythagorean tuning. The bell chime and hurdy-gurdy seem to have been invented specifically for that purpose.
Precisely tuned instruments appear in Psalter illustrations with increasing frequency from the twelfth century forwards. Thirteenth-century illuminations began to show David himself playing the organ and bell chime, reinforcing the association of his inspiration with Pythagorean tuning. The hurdy-gurdy and organ acquired efficient keyboards in the later twelfth and early-thirteenth centuries, respectively, making them viable performing instruments for the first time. This altered the way these instruments were perceived and gradually eroded their association with celestial harmony.

Maria Kapkidi (Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων / University of Ioannina), Νέοι Ελληνικοί Δίσκοι Φωνογράφου. Iconography as a Marketing Strategy: Visual Language Used in Record Catalogs and in Advertisements in the Hellenic-American Press (1910–1930).

Iconography operates as a powerful marketing tool, integrating cultural symbols to enhance consumer appeal. Between 1910 and 1930, Greek gramophone companies—including Columbia, Victor, Okeh-Odeon, Greek Record Company, and Panhellenion—utilized visual language in advertisements and record catalogs featured in Atlantis (Ατλαντίς, 1894–1973) and The National Herald (Εθνικός Κήρυξ, since 1915). These companies depicted the Greek flag, traditional costumes, and historical motifs to evoke nostalgia and cultural pride among Greek immigrants in the United States. The visual strategies ranged from scenes of traditional life to patriotic and religious symbols, creating emotional bonds with consumers while positioning gramophone records as cultural artifacts that bridged the homeland-diaspora divide.
Themes in these advertisements often reflected significant historical events, such as the Greek Revolution of 1821, and celebrated annual holidays like Easter and Christmas. Companies aligned their imagery with familiar cultural and religious symbols, including the Parthenon, the fustanella, and Orthodox churches, resonating deeply with immigrant identity. The inclusion of celebrity endorsements and evocative illustrations, as adopted by Victor and Columbia, contrasted with Thomas Edison’s focus on technical quality over star appeal, highlights a shift in marketing strategies.
The advertisements also symbolized consumer integration into capitalist markets, where commodified music reinforced cultural continuity while serving as a nostalgic anchor. The combination of detailed visual representation and emotionally resonant narratives demonstrate the innovative use of iconography as a means of embedding national identity within consumer culture. This approach underscored a nuanced interplay between commodification, cultural heritage, and advertising in early twentieth-century marketing, offering insight into how consumer goods like gramophone records facilitated the preservation and transmission of Greek cultural identity abroad.

Janne Mäkelä (Taideyliopisto / The University of the Arts, Helsinki), Shaping Cultural Heritage: The Long Debate over the Sibelius Monument in 1960s Finland.

In 1961, The Sibelius Society announced a competition for a public monument that would honour the centennial of the birth of Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). The winner of the competition, Finnish sculptor Eila Hiltunen (1922–2003) created a monument that was then erected in 1967. Her work Passio Musicae with its organ-style steel pipes is nowadays a top tourist attraction in Helsinki, yet at the time the monument and the process leading to it sparked a heated debate that revolved around abstract art, cultural policy, and gender. One of the main arguments in the debate was that the monument represented a distorted homage to the national hero and his music. The debate was a sign of the clashing forces of the decade as well as a cultural emblem that raised new kind of questions about heritage, legitimacy and ownership in music and the arts.

Lucia Marchi (Università di Trento), Music around Raphael’s Sistine Madonna.

After the annexation of the city of Piacenza to Papal States in 1512, Pope Julius II commissioned Raphael to paint an altarpiece for the main altar of the Benedictine monastery of San Sisto. The painting, known as Sistine Madonna, today at Dresden, Gamäldegalerie Alter Meister, is a sacra conversazione between the Virgin and the titular saints, St. Barbara and St. Sixtus. The Sistine Madonna appears on clouds, revealed by the opening of heavy curtains in a sort of theological epiphany.
Before the reorganization of the church following the regulations of the Council of Trent, the altar was placed in the center of the transept, and surrounded by a wooden choir completed around 1528 by a team of artists including Gian Pietro Pambianco da Colorno and Gian Maria Boselli da Parma. This original position of the painting should be considered in its interpretation and in the explanation of the expression of the Christ-Child, who does not rest peacefully in the arms of his mother, but looks horrified straight forward. In such monastic churches, the choir enclosure usually included a crucifix opposite the main altar; thus, Christ looked directly at his own death, in a long tradition of representing the child with symbols prefiguring his Passion.
Differently than most Marian representations, which followed since the Middle Ages the tradition of representing angels singing and playing instruments, Raphael’s painting does not appear particularly musical. However, the painting stands in a dialogue with the surrounding stalls, decorated by intarsio panels, which could for Renaissance viewers evoke aural stimulation. The included images show a large positive organ, a six-string lira da bracio, and a rebec. The most striking feature of the choir are four carved mensural compositions. Two are shown in open books: ”Sancta Maria ora pro nobis”, for three voices, in a homorhythmic simple style; and a proportional canon on the text “Artibus haec cunctis ortus dedit inclita virtus / totus et aeterno concentu jubilat orbis”. Two other, included at the top of the stalls, are four-part contrapuntal settings of the texts “Non canit ascrei chorus hic celebrata poetae carmina, sed vatis carmina sancta dei”; and “Intentas aures, intentaque corda tenete dulci[s] sonis vocibus dulci[s] sonisque lyris”. The appendix includes transcriptions of these pieces in the modern notation.

Marta Salvatori (Pontificio Istituto Ambrosiano di Musica Sacra), The Figure of Saint Cecilia in the Artistic Panorama of Bernardo Strozzi.

In his artistic career Bernardo Strozzi (1582–1644) approached the subject of Saint Cecilia at least eighteen times, reflecting his stylistic and iconographic evolution from the Genoese to the Venetian period. These paintings followed shortly after the 1599 restoration works on the Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, in Rome, when were discovered and exhumed the saint’s remains, what in turn advanced her veneration and initiated a variety of ceremonies dedicated to her. Strozzi’s works dedicated to Saint Cecilia provide a privileged perspective for exploring the interplay between iconographic tradition and pictorial innovation, showcasing Strozzi’s ability to reinterpret models and influences into a highly personal and mature Baroque vision.

Dagmar Schnell (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Überlegungen zur Kulturgutdigitalisierung als Chance und Herausforderung für die deutsche RIdIM-Katalogisierung am Beispiel der Handschriften aus dem 14. Jahrhundert der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek [Reflections on the digitization of cultural heritage as an opportunity and challenge for the German RIdIM cataloguing, using the example of the fourteenth century manuscripts of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek].

The digitisation of cultural heritage has come a long way in recent decades and the changing situation has also had a major impact on the cataloguing of music-related images. Portals and digital collections of museums, libraries und archives provide digital copies of art objects or manuscripts and the related metadata. Creative commons licenses simplify their subsequent use. Especially fragile objects as medieval manuscripts can be made available by using the digital images. At the same time, the enormous amount of images and data pose to the German RIdIM office new challenges regarding the cataloguing of music iconography: Music as subject is still often neglected in the description of artworks and the data about art objects is incompatible with their digital displays. Neither the search for (similar) images nor the selection of suitable data can be automated, and while the providers of images and data are progressing with great strides, the cataloguer has still to describe every item and has to read every data record to find relevant objects.

Zhou Xiaoshan 周晓杉 & Johan Awang Bin Othman (School of the Art, Universiti Sains Malaysia), The Plane of Consistency of Rhizome: Visual Music From the Perspective of Deleuze’s Philosophy.

Since the birth of film, directors had tried to use musical devices to structure visual presentation. The form of “visual music” in film had existed for a considerable amount of time. However, most related studies treated film and music as stable strata of binary opposition, neglecting to put them in a plane of consistency as an extension of multiplicity. Deleuze’s philosophy involved film and music. He emphasized the rhizome structure of consistency constructed by the connection of heterogeneous elements, and sought for difference in unity. This perspective provided a methodology for studying film and music as a varied multiplicity. Therefore, constructing the plane of consistency of rhizome, a special visual form of “visual music” from Gilles Deleuze’s philosophical perspective, provided a new method for research in related field and promoted the mutual generation of theory and practice.