The project “How to Decode a 19th-Century Friendship Album?” has just concluded—an exceptional interdisciplinary project carried out jointly by the Centre for Digital Musicology at the Institute of Musicology, University of Wrocław, and the Text Genetics and Digital Transcription Lab at the Institute of Polish Philology.

The project was led by Dr. Grzegorz Joachimiak and Prof. Agnieszka Kuniczuk, and was implemented within the Educational Initiatives Programme funded by the Vice-Rector for Teaching, Dr. hab. Łukasz Machaj, Prof. UWr. The project involved students and doctoral researchers from musicology and Polish philology at the University of Wrocław. The musicology participants included: MA Marianna Siatkowska (Digital Musicology Lab), Ms Lalita Czekanowska, and Mr Antoni Szpakowski.

The aim of the project was to analyse a nineteenth-century album as a complex cultural object—both textual and musical. As part of the work, participants focused on the identification, interpretation, and contextualisation of entries, including literary works, dedications, and musical materials.

The specific contribution of musicology centred on the study of handwritten musical items contained in the album. The musical repertoire present in the source was analysed in terms of its social functions and its significance within the context of salon practices and nineteenth-century memory culture. This work made it possible to present the friendship album not only as a collection of texts, but also as evidence of musical practices and social relationships in which music played a significant role.

The outcomes of the project included joint presentations at conferences by the participants and the development of interdisciplinary methods for analysing sources, combining digital humanities tools with traditional approaches from musicology and literary studies.