We’d like to start our blog with a little retrospective of the last 1½ years. In January 2013, John Wilson started work on the project almost on his own, supported by Birgit Lodes. At that time a lot of things, especially concerning the sources, had not been clear, such as the detailed situation at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, where much of the music library of Elector Maximilian Franz is kept, and the existence of Maximilian Franz’ estate, which was supposed to be in the Haus-, Hof- and Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives) in Vienna, as well as the question what other documents were preserved in the Rhineland, and in which archives. Soon it was obvious that the questions of the project had to include a lot of different perspectives to approach the study of operatic performances at Bonn during the reign of Maximilian Franz.

In May 2013 Elisabeth Reisinger joined the project. As a part of it she is going to write her dissertation, concerning Maximilian’s time in Vienna, where he grew up at the Imperial Court, was socialized as a Habsburg Prince, and became part of the musical life of the Viennese aristocracy and its social networks.

By then the team was completed and work could really start – with a first step: finding and taking a look at the sources, which are scattered over different European regions. Elisabeth started with her research work at the Haus-, Hof- and Staatsarchiv Wien, where she found out, that the estate of Maximilian Franz not only existed but was quite extensive and containing lots of interesting documents concerning the theatre as well as its singers and musicians at the court. She also went to the Rhineland twice to look at complementary documents in Düsseldorf and Bonn.

Until December 2013 almost all documents concerning the Electorate of Cologne were housed in the Landesarchiv NRW in Düsseldorf.
In May 2014 the new archive building in Duisburg opened, which means: a new destination for the next research trip…

John’s first trips to Modena revealed a very similar state of affairs. Beforehand, he had only a very old (and somewhat vaguely written) published library catalogue to go on, and couldn’t be at all sure which sources at the Biblioteca Estense would be of interest to the project. As it turns out, there is a great deal more than anyone had bargained for, and beyond this, several sources run into the thousands of pages! After forcing the extremely friendly Italian librarians to carry around dozens of boxes for a week, John was able to get a more specific idea of what kinds of information could be gleaned from the sources.

This building in Modena contains the Biblioteca Estense.