Nationalism, Virtuosity and Their Sublime (Musical) Objects
Abstract
The present paper reflects on the entanglement of nationalism with the musical past in Italy. In particular it focuses on the topic of musical traditions and the role that both the musicological discipline and radio broadcasting played in constructing a new understanding of the Italian musical tradition at the beginning of the 20th century. In the first part, the article outlines the main traits characterising the social constructivist approach towards the study of tradition. In the second part, it considers Italian radio broadcasts during the 1920s and 1930s as a case in study that exemplifies the power of nationalism, not only in reshaping the past but also in forging the future, by considering its further entanglement with Fascism. In the third part it makes some concluding remarks on the limits of the social constructivist approach with regard to music by briefly touching upon the issue of virtuosity from the perspective of Slavoj Žižek’s theory of the sublime object.
