Musik in Krisenzeiten: Kriege und Konflikte

The tryptic on “Music in Times of Crisis” began with “Pandemics” (vol. 38) and continues here with “Conflicts and Wars” (vol. 39) addressing aspects of musicological engagement in confrontational crises. While the effects of the global pandemic of Covid-19 were already well-known when we put out our call, we could not have guessed that the theme of war would gain such global prominence with the recent escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. For obvious reasons, the focus of this issue cannot be this particular socio-political conflict. Nonetheless, many of the contributions published here resonate eerily through space and time, questioning how sounds and conflicts relate to each other, how acoustic phenomena can be an expression of wars both past and present, and how such local, national and global crises are perceived as, expressed in, or confronted through music. In the present issue authors address the topic of music in “Conflicts and Wars” spanning several centuries and continents.