Res Musica 1 (2009)

The yearbook Res Musica aims to become the widest forum of Estonian musicology publishing articles in all the areas of musicological research written by most international circle of scholars. One of the goals of the journal is to develop musicological discourse in Estonian, relating it at the same time to the central problems and discourses in different languages that are often based on quite different traditions of thinking and writing about music. Thus, another goal of the journal might be to synthesize the currently dominating English-language discourse with German that was the language of academic life in the Baltic states earlier in the 20th century, and Russian musicological thought that defined much of the communication in the field during the Soviet decades. First of all, we plan to publish single articles and thematic numbers of the journal in Estonian, but also in English and German. In any case, articles will be provided with extensive summaries translated into Estonian or, in case of Estonian articles, into English or German (depending on the theme). In addition to the articles based on musicological research, each number of the journal will include a section of reviews and an overview of the last year in Estonian musicological life.

The yearbook will be published by the Musicological Department of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and the Estonian Musicological Society. All articles will be peer-reviewed before accepting them for publishing by scholars active in similar areas of academic research. In finding potential contributors and reviewers the editors are assisted by the international editorial board. In recent decades, the number of scholars with at least reading knowledge of Estonian has rapidly increased both in our neighbouring countries and in the English-speaking world enabling us to get backfeed for works in Estonian from outside of our own small community. At the same time, the editors plan to use the possibility of translating all the contents of one volume into one language if the selection of articles forms a thematically homogeneous whole addressing some specific circle of potential readers (e.g. Estonian readers interested in history and culture outside musicology; or international scholars in some specific field like contemporary analysis of music).

Urve Lippus