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Mark Ferraguto

Associate Professor, Musicology
Mark Ferraguto

Mark Ferraguto, Associate Professor of Musicology, specializes in the music and culture of 18th- and early 19th-century Europe. His teaching and research interests include the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; folk music and exoticism; historical performance practices; and music and politics.

Ferraguto’s research explores how the contours of cultural and political history can illuminate musical works and styles. His book Beethoven 1806 (Oxford University Press, 2019) examines the music of this year through a microhistorical lens, showing how it relates to the desires and demands of Beethoven’s patrons, performers, audiences, critics, and publishers. His work also investigates music’s role in international relations. Co-organizer of the interdisciplinary conference “Music and Diplomacy” (Harvard and Tufts Universities, March 2013), he co-edited Music and Diplomacy from the Early Modern Era to the Present (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Ferraguto received his Ph.D. in musicology with a concentration in performance practice from Cornell University. He has received grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Musicological Society, among others, and has presented his research at conferences throughout North America and Europe. In 2017, he was a research associate at the IES Abroad Center in Vienna, where he also guest lectured. His articles have been published in such journals as Early Music, Music and LettersHAYDN, the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and Studia Musicologica. His article in Music and Letters, on luxury and diplomacy at the Razumovsky Palace in Vienna (vol. 97, no. 3, August 2016), won the journal’s Westrup Prize “for an article of particular distinction.” He is also a contributor to four recent edited collections, all published by Cambridge University Press: the Cambridge Haydn Encyclopedia (2019), the Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony (2020), the Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute (forthcoming), and Beethoven in Context (forthcoming).

Ferraguto’s recent courses have included Beethoven’s Vocal Music, Mozart’s Last Year, Music and Diplomacy, Interpreting Eighteenth-Century Music, and the Concerto from Vivaldi to Beethoven, as well as larger survey courses. In 2019, he was awarded the Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Architecture.

An active performer on organ and harpsichord, Ferraguto is an associate of the American Guild of Organists and a recipient of the Guild’s AAGO Prize. He serves as organist at Faith United Church of Christ. Prior to joining the Penn State faculty, he taught at Cornell University and the Hartt School.

  • Education
    • BA from College of the Holy Cross
    • MA from Cornell University
    • PhD from Cornell University
  • Courses Taught
    • Musicology
  • Publications + Presentations

    BOOKS

    2023

    • Franz Weiss, Two String Quartets, Op. 8 (“Razumovsky”)
      Edited by Mark Ferraguto
      A-R Editions, 2023
      ISBN: 9781987208429
      Franz Weiss (1778–1830) is best known today as the violist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, the ensemble that first brought Beethoven’s string quartets into the limelight. He was also, however, a celebrated composer in his own right. This volume features Weiss’s most ambitious chamber work: a pair of string quartets dedicated to the Russian diplomat and quartet enthusiast Count Andrey Razumovsky.

    2019

    • Beethoven 1806 Mark Ferraguto
      Oxford University Press, 2019
      ISBN: 9780190947187
      Drawing on theories of mediation and a wealth of primary sources, Beethoven 1806 explores the instrumental music of this year from the perspective of Beethoven’s relationships with people, instruments, and ideas.

    2014

    • Music and Diplomacy from the Early Modern Era to the Present
      Edited by Rebekah Ahrendt, Mark Ferraguto, Damien Mahiet
      Palgrave MacMillan, 2014
      ISBN: 9781137468321
      How does music (its concepts, practices, and institutions) shape the exercise of diplomacy, the pursuit of power, and the conduct of international relations? Drawing together sixteen international scholars with backgrounds in musicology, ethnomusicology, political science, cultural history, French studies, German studies, and communication, this volume interweaves historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives.
  • Expertise
    • Musicology