Carlo Ferdinando Lickl - A Composer of two Worlds

! This!research!project!focuses!on!the!city!of!Trieste!as!a!multiethnic!border!region! of!the!Habsburg!Empire!in!the!19th!century,!a!period!of!increased!processes!of!! nationalization.!Studies!such!as!Peter!Judson`s!book!on!the!language!frontier! (Judson!2006)!have!drawn!attention!to!the!specific!importance!of!border!regions! and!their!role!in!the!cultural!construction!of!spaces!and!identities.!This!project! will!utilize!the!printed!and!manuscripted!works!of!Carlo!Ferdinando!Lickl!(1803O 1864),!a!Triestine!composer!of!German!descent,!to!investigate!the!role!of!music! in!such!a!setting.!In!the!first!place,!it!will!give!accessibility!to!this!important!but! today!completely!unknown!source!of!19thOcentury!Austrian!music!history! through!a!systematization,!description,!and!cataloging!of!the!entire!Lickl! Collection,!housed!in!the!archive!of!!the!Civico&Museo&Teatrale&Carlo&Schmidl!in! Trieste!(approximately!128!scores).!Secondly,!it!will!provide!a!musical!microO history!focused!on!dynamics!of!cultural!transfer,!multiple!identity!constructions,! and!border!experiences!in!Lickl`s!life!and!work.!Methodologically,!this!research! project!combines!a!sourceObased!philological!approach!with!a!cultural!analysis!of! such!rich!archival!material!in!terms!of!cultural!transfer,!expecting!that!these! research!strategies!will!inform!each!other!and!will!positively!influence!the! overall!outcome.!

Carlo Ferdinando Lickl (1803-1864): A Composer Between Two Worlds What prompted a Viennese composer in the early 19th century to set out for Trieste, and how does it come that he is today remembered locally as an Italian composer? Is he Carl Ferdinand or Carlo Ferdinando Lickl? How does he see himself, and what images does music history construct of a musician and composer within the multicultural context of the Habsburg Monarchy amidst the rising nationalist movements of the 19th century? These are the questions that this research project investigates, drawing on the extensive compositional legacy now preserved in the archive of the Civico Museo Teatrale Carlo Schmidl in Trieste, an important project partner. The research focused on three main areas: First, the examination of the historical sources. Lickl's legacy was the starting point for this project. In the mid-1990s, the Lickl collection was donated to the archive of the Trieste Theatre Museum Carlo Schmidl. Neither inventoried nor cataloged, the collection remained largely unknown to both the public and researchers. The research project enabled fundamental work on the sources. Within the project, the entire collection was reviewed, reorganized, inventoried, cataloged, and a systematic catalog of works was created, providing a comprehensive overview of Lickl's compositional output. This includes three operas (two in German and one in Italian), an oratorio, several masses, orchestral works, and numerous piano pieces for a wide circle of friends and students. The Lickl collection reveals, on the one hand, a portrait of a composer and musician who significantly shaped Trieste's musical life for over thirty years, from the early 1830s until he died in 1864. On the other hand, analysis of this collection offers a detailed insight into the musical life and bourgeois musical culture of 19th-century Trieste. Thus, the cultural-historical contextualization of the composer and the analysis of the collection formed the second major focus of the work. Carl Ferdinand, Carlo Ferdinando, or Charles Lickl - from the beginning, it was striking how Lickl modified his name according to the audience he addressed. This reflects a sensitivity to the complex cultural situation in the pluralistic environment of Trieste. It also provides information about both Lickl himself and the heterogeneous bourgeois audience for whom he wrote both his Italian national opera "La Disfida di Barletta," based on the novel by Massimo d'Azeglio, which caused a sensation in 1848, and the festival music for the founding celebrations of the German Turner Association Eintracht. The investigation reveals numerous ambivalences that demand interpretation and raise the question of what stories we tell. This marks the third focus of the project: the theoretical reflection on how we construct (music) history beyond a national paradigm.