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A few remarks in answer to Art Samplaski's posting:<br>
<br>
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.<br>
To this may be added that, from the start, <i>Musikwissenschaft</i>
has been more systematic than any other similar discipline. In
late-18th and early-19th centuries, <i>Kunstwissenschaft </i>meant
<i>Kunstgeschichte</i>, History of Art. Yet, Johann Berhard Logier's
<i>System der Musik-Wissenschaft</i> 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 <i>Jahrbücher
für Musikalische Wissenschaft</i> in 1863.<br>
<br>
1bis) The tripartite subdivision of the discipline in Musicology,
Theory, Ethnomusicology, is made explicit in Kerman's <i>Contemplating
Music</i>, a century after Adler. I don't know (and didn't try to
know) whether he was the first to do so - probably not.<br>
<br>
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 <i>Musikwissenschaft</i>:
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. <br>
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 <i>Harmony</i>, in 1954 (half a
century before the completion of the complete translation of all his
published analytical works, with <i>Tonwille </i>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. <i>Free
Composition</i> followed only 25 years later, having been chosen
precisely because it is the most "academic" of Schenker's writings.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr">nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr</a><br>
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