[Smt-talk] Degree terminology (was Re: Princeton and Theory)

[Ildar Khannanov]

Dear Nicolas,
 
we should not forget Hugo Riemann's book Grundriss der Musikwissenschaft, in which he suggests a very elaborate and precise division of disciplines: Akustik, Tonpsychologie,  Musikaesthetik, Die musikalische Sachlehre (Musiktheorie), Musikgeschichte. 
 
Apparently, in his system, music theory and music history are strictly and clearly separated. 
 
In early 1860s, at the St. Petersburg and at the Moscow Conservatory, the Departments of History and Theory of Music funcitoned as a combination of two disciplines. However, the two were separated and taught by different professors. In 1932, a Specialized Theory Department had been created by Victor Zukkerman and Leo Mazel at the Moscow Conservatory. Its function was to develop music theory as a discipline and to teach undergraduate theory majors (!), together with the aspirants (graduate students). So, Kerman did not introduce this division; he was not hte first.
 
 
Best,
 
Ildar Khannanov
Peabody Conservatory 

--- On Mon, 11/22/10, Nicolas Meeùs <nicolas.meeus at paris-sorbonne.fr> wrote:


From: Nicolas Meeùs <nicolas.meeus at paris-sorbonne.fr>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Degree terminology (was Re: Princeton and Theory)
To: "art samplaski" <agsvtp at hotmail.com>
Cc: smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
Date: Monday, November 22, 2010, 3:15 AM


A few remarks in answer to Art Samplaski's posting:

1) Adler's description of the discipline (1885) counted only two subareas. Comparative musicology (that we'd call ethnomusicology today) was part of the systematic approach. Adler's subdivision was very much akin to Saussure's later opposition between diachronism and synchronism: both subareas have roughly the same objects of research, but envisaged either from a historical point of view, or from a systematic, synchronic one, that envisages things as they contribute to form a system - Adler speaks of "laws" of music, which he considers to some extent immutable. Adler's systematic musicology also includes that which cannot be envisaged from a historical point of view, among which comparative musicology.
    To this may be added that, from the start, Musikwissenschaft has been more systematic than any other similar discipline. In late-18th and early-19th centuries, Kunstwissenschaft meant Kunstgeschichte, History of Art. Yet, Johann Berhard Logier's System der Musik-Wissenschaft of 1827, the first work to use the term, is a treatise on harmony, continuo and composition - i.e. a sort of musical grammar. Since then,  Musicology entertained a somewhat conflictual relation with other sciences of the arts. Chrysander already stressed this conflict when introducing the new Jahrbücher für Musikalische Wissenschaft in 1863.

1bis) The tripartite subdivision of the discipline in Musicology, Theory, Ethnomusicology, is made explicit in Kerman's Contemplating Music, a century after Adler. I don't know (and didn't try to know) whether he was the first to do so - probably not.
    
2) I always heard that the American split between historical musicology and theory was the result of a somewhat harsh clash at a meeting of the AMS - I don't know when, nor why - resulting in the creation of the SMT in 1977. One striking aspect of Adler's bipartite musicology is that it includes nothing of the kind of, say, biographies or sociology, which are only side disciplines to what he considers the single object of Musikwissenschaft: music itself. There has been some drift towards these side aspects in the various musicological societies (the first one had been the Dutch one, in 1868; the AMS was created in 1934), because early musicologists often were general historians with a mere taste for music, and because these aspects are easier to deal with without any of our technical (and at times esoteric) knowledge. 
    Also, the introduction of (Schenkerian) analysis in the American academic world must have been resented by some as a threat. In this respect, it is striking that the first translation of Schenker should have been that of his Harmony, in 1954 (half a century before the completion of the complete translation of all his published analytical works, with Tonwille in 2004): it was not meant for musicologists, but for practicing musicians, and it is this fact that justifies the odd choice of this particular book. Free Composition followed only 25 years later, having been chosen precisely because it is the most "academic" of Schenker's writings.

3) As is well known, music analysis entered the academic world under the pretense of scientificity. This not only did some harm to Schenkerian theory, but also led to other reactions such as Kerman's, which is basically an attack against ill-conceived "scientificity" (or academism; it often is the same thing). But that's another story.

Nicolas Meeùs
Université Paris-Sorbonne
nicolas.meeus at paris-sorbonne.fr

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