Le trait d'union musical tiré par mersenne entre encyclopédie et rhétorique académique

This paper is a survey of Father Mersenne's views about the classification of sciences, its reasons and its practical consequences. Some emphasis is put on the interconnection between Mersenne's two major ideas about the practice of science: scientific research is an activity mostly devoted to religious apology and to the edification of the people. This religious concern allows him to resist two of the most influential philosophical streams of his time, scepticism and alchemy, which provide some of the major opposition to his works. We also show how an analogical kinship based on theological considerations and on the classification of sciences leads to the same kind of arguments shaping his views about arithmetic, language, and music. Finally, we focus on the connection between Mersenne's theses, especially about the nature and virtue of language and sound, and a more general discussion of the scientific status of music and language in the context of the blooming of academies.     

‘Musicking’ children from the Bohemian lands: nurtured and hidden musical practices on both sides of the Iron Curtain

Based on an analysis of musical childhood memories from over 80 Germans from the Bohemian lands and historical evidence, this article investigates processes of social and political integration and assimilation of German children and young adults who, in the aftermath of the Second World War, were either expelled to Germany or remained in their Bohemian homelands. Memories of Germans expelled to West Germany disclose the various ways in which musical repertoire and musical practices are able to mitigate both the loss of the homeland and the distressing overall effects of expulsion, as well as reveal how music facilitates the building of a new sense of belonging in the face of geographic displacement and material dispossession. The study further highlights how the reframing and even silencing of musical practices on the other side of the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia affected processes of social-identity reconstruction until and after the 1989 fall of Communism. Results of this study foreground that individual musical experiences reveal new historical narratives of how German expellees used and still use musical practices to negotiate intercultural power relationships and rebuild a sense of belonging in their respective post-war environment in West Germany or Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic.