Resources for a History of Musical Cultures: The Revista de la Asociación Wagneriana de Buenos Aires (1914-1926)

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to rethink traditional approaches by music magazines and conceive of them as social action devices and practices that gave distinctive characteristics to musical cultures and took place in different spheres of public opinion. The analysis is based on the Revista de la Asociación Wagneriana de Buenos Aires (published by the association of the same name), starting from the periodization of its vital or editorial phases, taking into account the plurality of contexts and the aspects related to them, their collective organization as a space of enunciation, their style, resources, etc. It was found that, while the institutional dependency of the publication conditioned its form and content, it also operated as an entity in itself (“a forum for art and culture”). Finally, attention is drawn to the multiple possibilities of researching music journals (often conceived as “manifestations” of processes occurring outside them), the dynamics of their changes and interventions, and the different meanings granted through time-, that turn them into cultural magazines.