In this colloquium, I want to examine the political and cultural ambitions of ‘Austrofascism’, i.e. Austria from 1933-1938, a regime often overlooked in studies of fascist culture. Although Austrian fascism lacked the institutional scope or economic might of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism, its ideologues similarly sought to shape contemporary national culture through public ceremonies, commemorations, artistic patronage, and state-sponsored cultural organisations. Austrian music and musicians were, of course, central to these efforts: Mozart, Schubert, Mahler, Johann Strauss (perhaps), and Anton Bruckner (especially). The latter – in the 1990s articles of Bryan Gilliam et al. – is more famous as an annexee of Nazi Germany. But I will argue that, unsurprisingly, the Austrians got there first, transforming the composer into a potent symbol of national identity and good Catholic values, the ‘morbid remnant’ of an ‘incomplete past’ (Ernst Bloch) that Austrofascism would now fulfil.

Speaker:

Dr. Nicholas Attfield is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham. He is a musicologist specialising in German music and culture from c.1870 to 1945. After completing an undergraduate degree in Music at King’s College London in 2002, he pursued masters and doctoral study at St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, with a year as Procter Visiting Fellow at Princeton. In 2007 he was DAAD Michael Foster Research Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, and from 2007 to 2010 held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Faculty of Music at Oxford. He has taught at numerous Oxford colleges, and was Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2011-12); from 2013-17 he was Lecturer in Music at Brunel University London, and Undergraduate Programmes Lead (2016-17). Recent publications include co-editorship (with Ben Earle) of The Cambridge Companion to Music and Fascism (CUP, 2026) and a monograph Lamestains: Grunge, Sub Pop and the Music of the Loser (Reaktion, 2023).