Wiebke Thormählen

Current and Future Research

As a social and cultural historian of music, Wiebke reads music as a series of historically conditioned practices that locate meaning in the act of music-making, both social and solitary. Her research, previously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and The Austrian Academic Exchange Service, focusses on the idea of “engagement” as fundamental to our every day interaction with the world yet variously determined by or shaping subjective, normative, ideological and institutional patterns of interaction.

Wiebke explores these modes of engagement and their meaning-making across three historical moments: the engagement with music as it moves across home and public spaces around 1800; the institutionalisation of professional engagement with music and with the instruction of music through particular training models around 1900; and the use of sound and music to construct or enhance new narratives in the museum and heritage sector today. Her work draws on methodologies in the history of emotions, medical history, material history and practice-based research. Currently, her work focusses on Britain drawing occasionally on her previous work in Austrian archival materials exploring the intersection of aesthetics and practice around in Vienna around 1800.

Wiebke has contributed articles and reviews to the Journal of Musicology, Eighteenth-Century Music, Early Music, Notes, Acta Mozartiana and Neues Musikwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch; she has presented her research at numerous conferences in the US, the UK and mainland Europe; she regularly converses on 18th-century musical culture in pre-concert events, programme and CD notes, festivals and educational events, and she has contributed to numerous BBC radio and television productions.

Research Areas

• Music in the Long Eighteenth Century (especially Britain and Austria)
• Sound Heritage and Material Culture
• Music Arrangements (especially 1750-1830)
• Music and Emotions / Medical History
• The idea of “engagement” with music and its various forms (dance, lectures, choral singing, collecting etc.)

External Research Roles

Sound Heritage Network – Steering Group Member, University of Southampton. I was co-investigator on the AHRC-funded project “Music, Home and Heritage: Sounding the Domestic in Georgian Britain.”

Music, Medicine and History Network – Steering Group Member

Digital Humanities and Sensory Heritage Network (TORCH, Oxford University) – Core Member

Royal College of Music – Doctoral Supervisor

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Wellcome Trust

Austrian Academic Exchange Service (ÖAAD)

Undergraduate Teaching

RNCM teaching:

Music in Context 1 and 2

Previous teaching in other institutions – selections:

• The History of the Orchestra
• History in Practice: when history meets performance
• Music and Emotions: historical and scientific perspectives
• Women in Music
• Music and Technology: Political and Moral Perspectives
• Music, Politics and Representation: London 1800-2012

Postgraduate Teaching

Previous teaching in other institutions – selections:

• Research Projects
• German Opera 1800-1950
• Women in Music
• Issues and Topics in Eighteenth-Century Studies

Research Supervision

In a principal supervisory role:

Kate Stringer, Master and Apprentice: Music Conservatoire Culture and the Role of One-to-One Tuition

Stephen Meyer, The Role of the Violin in Argentinian Tango Music 1900-1940

Matthew Millkey, The Low-Hold and Thumb-Hold: Seventeenth-Century Violin and Bow Holds as Tools for Re-imagining Historical Performing Practices

Anny Ovsyanikova, The Artistic Legacies of Mathieu Crickboom

Max Wong, Arrangements as Creative Tools in the Performance of J.S. Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin BWV 1001-1006 (completed)

Anne Marie Christensen, The “Solo” for Violin: New Perspectives on Italian Violinists in Eighteenth Century London (completed)

Wiebke welcomes PhD applications particularly in Sound Heritage, in Eighteenth-Century Studies (including opera studies), and in topics relates to the social and cultural history of the conservatoire.

Selected Outputs

Brooks, L. Jeanice, Matthew Stephens and Wiebke Thormählen (eds.), Sound Heritage: Making Music Matter in Historic Houses (London: Routledge, 2022), includes:

• Wiebke Thormählen and Jeanice L. Brooks  ‘Sound Curation in Historic Houses: An Introduction to Key Issues’
• Wiebke Thormählen, ‘Curating Difficult Narratives: How to Exhibit Spiritual Narratives in the Historic House Museum’

Gouk, Penelope, James Kennaway, Jacomien Prins and Wiebke Thormählen (eds.), Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being: Historical and Scientific Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2018), includes:

• Wiebke Thormählen, Penelope Gouk, James Kennaway, Jacomien Prins ‘Introduction: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Music, Mind and Well-being’, 1–16.
• Wiebke Thormählen, ‘Framing Emotional Responses to Music: Music-making and Social Well-being in Early Nineteenth-Century England’, 93–105.

‘Diversifying Musical Practices: How to Address the Need for Change within Conservatoire Training,’ Wiebke Thormählen and Florence Ambrose in Colin Lawson, Rosie Perkins and Diana Salazar eds. Inside the Contemporary Conservatoire: Critical Perspectives from the Royal College of Music, London (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

‘Art, Music and Creative Practices: Between Aesthetics and Practice’ in The Routledge Modern History of Emotions, Katie Barclay and Peter Stearns eds. (London: Routledge, 2022),

‘Feel-good Tunes: Music Aesthetics, Performance and Well-being in the Eighteenth Century’ in Lifestyle and Medicine in the Enlightenment: The Six Non-Naturals in the Long Eighteenth Century, James Kennaway and Rina Knoeff eds. (London: Routledge, 2020), 243–63.

‘From Dissent to Community: The Sacred Harmonic Society and Amateur Choral Singing in London’ in London Voices 1820-1840: Vocal Performers, Practice, Histories, Susan Rutherford and Roger Parker eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Dec 2019), 159–78.

‘Physical Distortion and Mental Imbalance: Musical Virtuosity between Body and Mind’ in Music and the Nerves, 1700 – 1900. James Kennaway ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 191–215.

‘Lamenting at the Piano: the Purpose of Domestic Music-Making in Eighteenth-Century Britain’ in Göttinger Händelbeiträge: The Power of Musick: Music and Politics in Georgian Britain. Wolfgang Sandberger ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 144–60.

‘Playing with Art: Musical Arrangements as Educational Tools in van Swieten’s Vienna.’ Journal of Musicology 27/3 (Summer 2010): 342–76.

Web Resources

Katrina Faulds and Wiebke Thormählen; Editor: Wiebke Thormählen. Domestic Dance in Georgian Britain: A database of sources, practices, audio recordings, scores and arrangements (hosted by sound-heritage.ac.uk in collaboration with the National Trust). Authors: Launched 2022.

Sounding Erddig: Sound Curation National Trust – database of instrumental and vocal music extant in Erddig collections as well as sounds of the house – Resource for Museum Professionals, Curators, Visitor Experience Managers and Visitors (launched 2022).

Brooks, L. Jeanice and Wiebke Thormählen, “The Harplute at Erddig: Music, Fashion and Technology” (Concept, Script, Production, Video Editing). Released 2021.

Brooks and Thormählen, “Lost Voices of Erddig: A Secret Harpsichord” (Concept, Script, Production, Video Editing). Released 2020.

Public Presentations/ Knowledge Exchange

Exhibition: A Passion for Opera – Boughton House. June – Sept 2019. Including Opening Symposium and Semi-staged Pasticcio Opera performance. (Revised and Restaged 18 June – 3 Sept 2023 as Dalkeith Palace: A Passion for Music)

Brooks, L. Jeanice and Wiebke Thormählen, “Listening to the Past,” The National Trust Member’s Magazine (Autumn 2022): 32-36.

Professional Activity

As a public musicologist, I regularly contribute essays for exhibitions, festivals, and CD releases, most recently:

• Johann Jakob Walther: Scherzi da violino – Bojan Cicic – CD Sleeve Notes – Delphian Records DCD34294 (2022).
• “From Sociability to Interiority: Beethoven’s Chamber Music in Social Context,” Digital Beethoven Exhibition. British Library – Discovering Music: 19^th Century (launched Oct 2021).
• Dussek, “The Pianist, the Palace, the Prince and his Lover” – CD Essay – Ladislaus Dussek, Messe Solemnelle – The Academy of Ancient Music AAM011 (11/2020).

As musicological advisor, I have appeared on BBC Radio 3, the BBC Proms and in feature programmes such as ‘Sunday Feature: A Portrait of Hubert Parry’ (2018), and BBC2 “Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball” (2013).

My education and community engagement work includes directing a community choir; directing, planning and managing a primary school level mixed instrument ensemble; co-running sound-walking workshops for National Trust volunteers led by composer Brona Martin.

My performance activity included performances with leading period instrument ensembles in the US, the Netherlands and the UK; CD recordings include: Handel & Vivaldi (Academy of Ancient Music and Grace Davidson, 2017); Purcell, Choral Music (Choir of the Temple Church/ Temple Players, 2009); Handel, Music for the Coronation of James II, 1685 (Choir of the Chapel Royal / The Musicians Extra-Ordinary, 2008); Handel, Music for the Chapel Royal Vol.1 and 2 (Choir of the Chapel Royal / The Musicians Extra-Ordinary, 2007;2008); Richter (‘The Dutch Haydn’), Early Symphonies and Chamber Music (New Dutch Academy, 2006); Corelli, Concerti Grossi, Op.6 (New Dutch Academy, 2004).

I have acted as external programme examiner and external specialist examiner, and have served on promotion and employment panels. I have extensive experience as PhD examiner (internal and external) as well as chair, and I have significant experience in curriculum design and review.

I have served on the steering committee for MusicHE (formerly NAMHE) since 2020 as policy lead and more recently as events lead.