Due to their constant connection with the Mutterland, a self-proclaimed land of music, Transylvanian Saxons’ musical culture and practices has been regarded as an outcome of cultural transfers. The Great War made it even more clear that their double loyalty to the Danubian Empire as well as to the German Reich, as mandatory of the idea of Deutschtum, manifested in Saxons’ music(-king). Considering various precedents of the long 19th century, when music took sides, my project analyzes, in a comparative fashion, the way in which Saxons’ music(-king) functioned in the war context as an efficient tool to assert specific loyalties, but, had also to consider the musical traditions of the other ethnic groups from Transylvania. I adopt a cultural reading of the Great War scrutinizing the music(-king) in the trenches and behind the frontlines, the way it conveyed enthusiasm, solidarity, how it supported charitable activities, how it consoled or contributed in the processes of commemoration.

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