"Cosmopolitan Culture in Boccherini's Madrid, 1785-1800" A Presentation by Michael Vincent, 2015-2016 Tedder Family Doctoral Fellow

The music of the Italian composer Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) expressed a cosmopolitan attitude emblematic of Enlightenment Europe. Boccherini, who lived in Madrid for much of his professional life, composed in a predominantly Italian style. But he also composed several Spanish, French, Polish, and German dances which have never been studied. He blended folk traditions—real or imagined—with a pan-European musical language. This presentation focuses on Boccherini’s manuscripts and what they tell us about the transmission, reception, and genesis of the music. As a cultural artifact, music made tangible concepts such as the state of nature and universalism and their relationships with cosmopolitanism. Boccherini’s music presents a dual vision of cosmopolitanism, where the geographic particularities coexist with a universal community.

This event is part of the 2015-16 Fellowship Brown-Bag Series, which features informal talks by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’s Rothman Faculty Summer Fellows, Tedder Doctoral Fellows, and Rothman Doctoral Fellows. Fellows will speak for 20-30 minutes in length about their funded work, leaving ample time for questions and discussion. 

• This event is free and open to the public.
• Please feel free to bring your own lunch. Drinks and dessert will be served.
• For more information on becoming a Tedder Doctoral Fellow, see the Call for Proposals.

• For more information on this event, contact humanities-center@ufl.edu.

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