Urban Music Studies

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Music City´s Origin – Hector Berlioz´ Euphonia

Topos Music City came up in the essay ‚Euphonia or the Musical City‘ by the French romantic composer Hector Berlioz  (1803-1869) first. Published in 1852 in his collection ‚Evenings with the Orchestra‘ Berlioz envisions a future town, situated on the slopes of Harz in Germany, in which the inhabitants devote themselves exclusively to one single activity – making music. The ideas of this aesthetic utopia, promoting music education, acoustic research and the building of monumental music shrines are now closer to realisation than Berlioz could imagine in his wildest dreams. More…