The Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York is delighted to bestow the inaugural Claire Brook Award on Florence Gétreau for her book Voir la musique (Paris: Éditions Citadelles & Mazenod, 2017).

The book offers a panorama of music subjects represented in West European painting from the 16th to the 20th century. From the silence of still lives and paintings of the vanities to the contrasting moods of festive, gallant, moral, parodic, and symbolic scenes, music has inspired painters, whether they evoke its role in the art of living and the variety of its practices, or emphasize its maleficent or redemptive power. Selected paintings demonstrate different artistic approaches to the materiality of music (musical instruments, notated music, gestures, actors, venues of music practice), and reveal the role of music themes in the most often represented mythological, religious, and life contexts. Many such paintings transcend the mere portrayal of sonic reality and reveal music’s symbolic universe. The paintings included in the volume demonstrate the author’s superb knowledge and understanding of West European art. The book, beautifully produced and founded on solid research, is a valuable contribution to the literature that is accessible to educated non-scholarly readers. The Éditions Citadelles & Mazenod is commended for the exceptional quality of the book’s design, production, and printing. https://citadelles-mazenod.com/livres-exceptionnels/429-voir-la-musique

Florence Gétreau will present a free public lecture, “Musicians in Portraits: Archaeology of a Genre, Codes of Representation, Symbolic and Social Meanings”, on 25 April 2019 at 6:30 pm, at The Martin E. Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. For details, click here.

Florence GÉTREAU, musicologist and art historian, is director emeritus of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). For thirty years she has been a curator at the Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire de Paris, Musée national des Arts et Traditions populaires, and chef de projet of the Musée de la Musique, and she served as director of the Institut de recherche sur le patrimoine musical en France (2004–2013). She has authored or edited numerous publications on French musical instruments, including their makers and cultural contexts as well as issues of conservation and access; on the sociology of music; and on music iconography. She is the founding editor of the journal Musique • Images • Instruments and has frequently curated exhibitions, most recently “Wine and Music: Harmony and Dissonance” (Cité du Vin, Bordeaux). Elected to the Academia Europaea in 2010, Commandeur des Arts et Lettres, she is the recipient of the Anthony Baines memorial Prize and the Curt Sachs Award of the American Musical Instruments Society. She is Past President of the Société française de musicologie (2011–2015), and current member of the Directorium of the International Musicological Society.

Read about The Claire Brook Award and Claire Brook:  

Read about the award committee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact for the Press:

Zdravko Blažeković

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