Musicology Peers Outside Itself, Confused and Bewildered

There has been a recent exchange on the American Musicological Society's listserv with the subject "last rites?" The discussion began with pathetic complaints about the lack of music books in other intellectual, yet un-musicological communities. One poster encouraged fellow colleagues to undertake a book project for these supposedly wanting groups. Robin Wallace, a well-respected scholar whose _Beethoven's Critics_ is a staple in graduate seminars, sought a "boiled-down Scott Burnham." The latter, it turns out, is also an expert on Beethoven reception, and author of another seminar staple _Beethoven Hero_. Doesn't everyone want to know how everything in music history has always been written as some motivation for, variation of, or deviation from Beethoven and his music?

Certainly university professors in other fields struggle with similar identity complexes. A newly discovered letter, a breakthrough experiment, a revision of a long-held theorem; each appear shocking news in academic journals when they refute, shed new light on, or reinforce something else in those same journals. It appears that in order to make our discoveries significant to a larger readership we have to show how such findings refute, shed new light on, or reinforce something found outside the pages of our own periodicals. Best-selling books authored by academic types that are reviewed in major newspapers and magazines are able to reach larger audiences by framing their discoveries and ideas in contexts beyond their own disciplines.

As a musicologist myself I can verify that our articles and presentations--including my own--tend to follow a formulaic approach that espouses our main arguments while insuring veracity. Most begin by establishing a purpose, providing a brief survey of dated articles and recent interests that leads to an assertion, and then proceed to lay out evidence, make conclusions, and finally encourage further study. But the parameters within which these presentations operate are relegated to the house discipline. Of course, interdisciplinary approaches have been, thankfully, introduced in musicology, even if lagging behind other areas in the humanities. But interdisciplinary methodologies and evidence suffer from superficiality when the opening framework is not set in larger-than-field terms.

Returning to the American Musicological Society's discussion, the listserv gradually shifted to reports of music appreciation classes and the declining interest of the university educated in Beethoven and other aspects of classical music. Nothing new here. One post, however, confounded me...in fact, offended me in some ways:

"When there has been a move afoot in some quarters away from the "composer-centered" study of music and music history, we have a problem. It is not clear, at least to me, what alternative organizing principle is to replace the traditional composer-era rubric, since most Western art music has been and continues to be composed by single individuals. Music does not come into existence through spontaneous generation but through the efforts and talents of skilled individuals who to some extent in turn stand on the shoulders of their musical forbears."

Perhaps if we are concerned with how little the non-musicologist cares for Beethoven anymore, we might reconsider the "composer-centered" approach. Although art music is composed by individuals, are we teaching the History of Western Music or the History of Western Music Composers? The individual is not the only practitioner of music. Ensembles who perform music, though made up of individuals, work together as a group. Audiences, even if from diverse backgrounds and tastes, receive premieres of new music together as concertgoers. A waltz would be fairly pathetic to dance to alone. It seems that the listserv might do well to look past the individual to find answers to its concerns. We do not need to "boil down" our research to make it accessible to others. We need to find new topics of concern to broader audiences if we want the readership enjoyed by NY Times bestselling authors. Beethoven need not be left behind. But we must tell our stories "larger than life," or at least larger than our field.