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Interdisciplinary research as a contemporary model of musicology

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 Interdisciplinary research as a contemporary model of
musicology1

Martin Link
Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms Universität
Münster, Germany
martinlink89@hotmail.com
Abstract

The investigation of music composed in the past is one of the most manifest aspects
of musicology, which produced crucial insight through a variety of methods.
However, diverse conceptions and conversions can be identified in the historical
development of musicology, which also led to controversies and polarizations. This
includes also the examination of artworks which are not that far back in time and are
therefore a part of a more recent history. With their striking new characteristics such
as electroacoustic music, aleatoric procedures or open forms, it is necessary to
understand these symptoms analytically in order to investigate contemporary music.
But such phenomenons are not always originated in the music itself and have their
roots at the same time in a more complex pattern which reaches out to other
disciplines like literature or philosophy. This article wants to investigate a model of
musicology from the antiquity and a model from German scholar Guido Adler to
understand two diverse musicological concepts. Consequently, three examples of
contemporary compositions will be looked at to emphasize the novel requirements for
a possible concept of musicological research.

1 This text is based on a public lecture at the IGS-conference in Thessaloniki, Greece, held on
February 10th, 2018.
Introduction

Die musikalische Historiographie ist anders legitimiert als die politische. Sie
unterscheidet sich von der politischen dadurch, dass die wesentlichen Relikte der
Vergangenheit, die musikalischen Werke, primär als ästhetische Gegenstände gegeben
sind und erst sekundär Quellen bilden, aus denen sich vergangene Ereignisse und
Zustände erschließen lassen. Eine Musikgeschichte streng nach dem Muster der
politischen Historie (…) wäre offenkundig eine Karikatur.2

This is an example of a statement formulated by one of the most influential scholars

in the history of musicology, and it tries to point out the exceptionalism of this
research by distinguishing it from political history. Although this thesis has a
potential for intensive debate, there is actually an important true fact in this
statement: music history and political history have a different background. And this
also applies to other research fields like philosophy. It is clear however, that
philosophy, for instance, was quite well on its way during the antiquity and so was
music as a part of the academic disciplines besides poetry and mathematics. But the
same can hardly be said for musicology and music history. This leads to the question:
What is musicology and how did research of music looked like during the antiquity?
It is not easy to give an answer to the first question especially because of the fact that
the situation of this genre differs in many countries today.
Taken the situation of this research field in Germany as an example, one of the most
prominent fathers was the just quoted scholar Carl Dahlhaus, who taught at the
Technische Universität in Berlin from 1967 until 1987. But 1967 after Worldwar II –
isn‘t this a late date for a science investigating apparitions, which were already
present during the antiquity?

2 Carl Dahlhaus, Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte, (Köln: Gerig 1977), 13

Translation: “The legitimation of musical historiography is different from the legitimation of
political historiography. It differs in that the relics of the past, the musical works, are
given primarily as aesthetical objects and secondary as sources from which historical
events and conditions can be deduced. A history of music strictly according to the pattern of
political history (…) would be a caricature.’’
Music theory during the Greek antiquity

In reality, research of music can of course already be observed before 1967. To see
this, it would be helpful to go back in history and to refer to the fact that music as
musiké (μουσική) was according to the academic schedule of the antiquity part of the
basic education of the intellect in a section together with gymnastics, poetry and
mathematics.3
In this context of musiké, it is clear that historic survey was not really the only main
goal of music scholars at that time. The ancient Greek also had a clear focus on
analysis. In fact, a highly developed system of music theory can be found during this
period: the foundation of scales in the systema teléion (σύστημα tέλειον) from
Aristotle student Aristoxenos from Tarent (Ἀριστόξενος ὁ Ταραντίνος).

Figure 1: The systema téleion and its subdivisions.4

3 Peter Kunzmann, Franz-Peter Burkard, dtv-Atlas Philosophie, (München: Deutscher

Taschenbuch Verlag 2011), 44-45
4 Hugo Riemann, Geschichte der Musiktheorie Im IX.–XIX. Jahrhundert, (Hildesheim:
Olms, 1961), 8
In this model, a core octave in the centre betwen E4 and E3 is divided by the two
tetrachords Tetrachordum dizeugmenon and Tetrachordum meson as well as a whole
tone-step in the middle, known as diázeuxis (figure 4).5 This excerpt was then added
by the two outer chords Tetrachordum hyperbolaion and Tetrachordum hypaton with
a shared tone called a Synaphé.6 The final tone A2 was then used in the end as a
Proslambanómenos to extend the scale to a double octave to the high A4. 7 As a
fundamental constructional element, the tetrachords were essential but also variable:
the beginning and ending notes were fixed while the two middle sections could be
exchanged.
This variety led to a shift of intervals and the birth of three melodic genders: diatonic,
the ‘basic’ form with A, G, F, E, chromatic with A, G flat, F, E and enharmonic with
A, F, F flat and E.8 The terms of these three genders have to be considered carefully
since they are also used in the contemporary temperation of the tone system, which
was not the case during the ancient period. Another factor is that despite of musical
practice, the Greek music theory never defined these genders more precisely and they
were rather more improvised practice.
It is obvious that the ancestors brought music and analytical thought through theory
and the help of mathematics together with a clear picture of how the music was
constructed in these days. But was this concept continued?

Musicology in Germany

In Germany, musicology has drifted in some ways far apart from an analytical basis
after 1933. The dark history of National Socialism is maybe the best example to see
how this scholarship transfered into a political influenced historical research and

5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
sociology.9 While research areas like philosophy and physics always kept on
progressing and adjusting, musicology had a special seperation namely the split up
between musicology and music theory. When scholars of music theory tried to stay
with analytical concepts shaped to the material, musicologists started to conduct
research like historians. A consequence of this was the fact that in musicological
training at German universities the field of music theory and analysis has been
reduced to a minimum schedule and merged into a study course of its own, which
was created under the name Tonsatz.
However, thanks to people like Carl Dahlhaus, musicology also had a chance to
develop itself through understanding its special status. Consequently, the discipline
experienced a development of three big cathegories in Germany: historic musicology,
systematic musicology and ethnologic musicology. Since the first and the third
subsection are possible to define accurately concerning their method, there is a
controversy about the term ‘systematic musicology’. In Germany, this discipline was
firstly named by Guido Adler in his publication Umfang, Methode und Ziel der
Musikwissenschaft in 1885.10 His intention was to bundle postulations of music
together in a system of theses, which was understood as a method of practice to
explain laws and criterion as well as to use them in a pedagogic sense. 11 This
‘systematic‘ approach also implied law giving and therefore nomothetic judgement to
correct ‘wrong’ attitudes of contemporary artists with the intention to instruct them. 12
In contrast to that, Adler understood historic research theoretically to investigate
different laws of construction in compositions of the past and their development. 13

9 Also music theory was badly affected by National Socialism. For this see also: Ludwig
Holtmeier, Von der Musiktheorie zum Tonsatz – Zur Geschichte eines geschichtslosen
Faches in: Zeitschrift Der Gesellschaft Für Musiktheorie 1-2/1/1, (Hildesheim: Olms,
2003), 11-34 in: https://www.gmth.de/zeitschrift/artikel/481.aspx, 2.3.20.
10 Guido Adler, Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft in: Vierteljahresschrift für
Musikwissenschaft 1/1. Vierteljahr (1886), 5-20
11 Ibid., 11
12 Ibid., 15
13 Ibid., 15
While explaining this, Adler refers to an antique model from Aristides Quintilianus
and compares this with his own concept:

Concept of Guido Adler

Concept of Quintilianus

Figure 2: Ancient curriculum of music from scholar Aristides Quintilianus and Guido Adler‘s new
model.
Photo: Wolfgang Auhagen, Veronika Busch, Jan Hemming, Systematische Musikwissenschaft,
(Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2011), 18-19
Furthermore, Adler quoted the following demand for systematic musicology:

Die Erhebung bestimmter Principien und Regeln zu der angegebenen Höhe setzt voraus,
daß der Forscher sich einerseits mit den Kunstwerken, andererseits mit den das
Kunstwerk appercipirenden Subjecten beschäftigt. Es liegen also der Forschung zwei
Objecte vor, deren Reciprocitätsverhältniß zu ergründen das letzte Ziel der Ästhetik sein
muß.14

This qotation shows that the artwork as the investigated object is not anylonger the
only point of concern in the case of aesthetics. Now, also the recipient is observed in
the research, and this gives natural scienes and especially psychology a new
authorisation. The idea is also connected with a strong usability since examinations of
the relationship between artwork and consignee can give a lot of benificial
information for educational purposes. This is probably also the reason why Guido
Adler fixed natural sciences and psychology in the ‘practical’ section of the
musicological curriculum because of their connection with didactics – the Greek
model of Quintilianus had a different classification. Its differentiation of theory and
practice was conceived as distance and proximity to performance while Adler
distinguishes between historical process as a theoretical status and timeless laws as
well as principles as systematic. Hence, the paradigm distance/proximity to a process
is replaced by the opposition historical/timeless. This led for instance to a
reclassification of physics as a formerly theoretical method to a systematic and
practical discipline.
Another very important and serious declaration in Adler‘s model is the allocation of
pedagogy to systematic musicology and its supply with scientific data from natural
sciences. This implies an exploitability of research for a practical and intermediary

14 Ibid., 12
Translation: “The survey of certain principles and laws at the given level demands that the
researcher deals with the artworks as well as with the artwork comprehending subjects.
Thus, there are two objects for the investigation and the discovery of their reciprocal
relationship has to be the ultimate goal of aesthetics.’’
field, and in his diagram only systematic musicology can accomplish this in contrast
to historic musicology. The question, to what extend historic research can give
usuable data for pedagogy, could be an important element of a musicological
reconsideration and should be taken into consideration in the future. Literally‚ the
term ‘systematic’ could also mean any structured method to help to achieve structured
research. This would include for instance music theory, sociology, philosophy,
psychology, statistics or even medicine. If all these methods would be indeed
regarded equally, there would be probably no reason for this article. Hence, there is a
problem: Systematic by what means? Instead of including different approaches to a
structured picture of music many scholars in Germany have decided to take a rather
dogmatic path and to restrict ‘systematic musicology’ to ‘empirical musicology’,
which is mostly executed by natural sciences like acoustics or statistics. Even if
Guido Adler did indeed try to emphasize empirical research, the idea was meant
supplementary. As a matter of fact, a discipline that gave musicology already quite
early analytical proof with a perspective very close to the investigated material has
almost vanished from the table: music theory. The result today is a massive horde of
students being capable of researching in archives or executing professional cohort
studies perfectly but haven‘t analysed a score that quite often.
One subdiscipline as the only method seems to be too restricted for a broad research
field, and therefore, other factors have to be included to obtain a full picture. With
empirical and historical research half of the picture has been already painted and now
the other parts have to be included in order to complete the tableau. The thing that
requires this complex procedure is at the same time no idealism or philosophical
intent, but the material itself.

Dealing with more complex structures

If we look at the development of musical material, we can see that historical research
but also music theory as an analytical tool have come to their limits. The following
example gives a short impression of ambiguity as an important factor of plurality in
advanced harmonics:

Figure 3: Example of an enharmonic equivalent with its resolutions.15

In older analyses it was possible to see how structure and in the end music has been
described for centuries with clarity. In figure 3 however, we can see the phenomenon
of an enharmonic equivalent as an example of ambivalent material. The augmented C
major chord with the sharpened fifth G flat is interpreted in the first example as an E
major chord resolving as the dominant to the tonic a minor. The second version uses
the same chord as an augmented chord based on A flat leading to the tonic f minor. In
other words, the same chord can have different interpretations and consequences in
different keys. A strict definition is quite difficult to give in such processes where
different relations of the elements can be found. Even if this example is quite
complex, it is still possible to give accurate understanding to some degree, which is
not always the case in contemporary compositions.
Taken for instance the sketch of Iannis Xenakis‘ Pithoprakta for string orchestra in
figure 4, there is a cloud pattern of sound distribution according to a ‘statistic’
parameter:

15 Reinhard Amon, Lexikon der Harmonielehre, (Vienna: Doblinger, 2005), 182-183

Figure 4: Score of Pithoprakta with distribution notation.16
Photo: Walter Gieseler, Komposition im 20. Jahrhundert, (Celle: Edition Moeck, 1975), 94,
© 1967 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited, Mit freundlicher Genehmigung
Boosey & Hawkes Bote & Bock, Berlin

This method of sound distribution does not contain selective allocation but rather
approximative ascertainment und is thereforefore not understandable through ‘classic’
analysis.
Another example of new complexity in musical material are open forms. In Karlheinz
Stockhausen‘s Zyklus, a part of the score is left open and has to be determined by the
performer himself:

16 Ibid.
Figure 5: Score of Karlheinz Stockhausen‘s Zyklus with eligibility in the different instrumental
parts.
Photo: Walter Gieseler, Komposition im 20. Jahrhundert, (Celle: Edition Moeck, 1975), 138,
© Copyright 1960 by Universal Edition (London) Ltd., London / UE 13186

In this excerpt of the 12th period in Zyklus, we can see a strict sequence of steps
divided into seconds in the middle and a determined sequence of sections. The big
boxes present of selection of material where the performer can choose the exact
execution within the framework of the given. This combination of setting and choice
is an example of a phenomenon which has different appearances in music and
demonstrates how form as consolidation has been dissolved and individualized. But
not only musical parameters were changed – also the material itself has been
transformed.

Linguistics and syntax theory as new research areas

Even more complex in a sense and without a score, is the electroacoustic composition
Thema (Omaggio a Joyce). It was created during the 1950ies in the Studio di
Fonologia Musicale by composer Luciano Berio and philosopher Umberto Eco. As
the title already reveals, it is not just about music but involves also text excerpts from
the Irish novellist James Joyce. Eco and Berio met each other in the main building of
the broadcast studio RAI in Milan where they spent a lot of time debating about the
works of the author from Ireland and its implications for music. 17 In fact, they
discovored that the 11th chapter of the novel Ulysses is constructed with special
words, which embody not precise meaning but instead a unique sound known as
‘Onomatopeia’. James Joyce himself regarded this as an example of music and he
treated it in Ulysses in the context of a fuga per canonem.18
In their experiment, Eco and Berio recorded excerpts of the novel with female and
male voices in English, French and Italian. Then, they overlapped the different
recordings resulting in a composition of new sound entities. What looks like another
œuvre of electroacoustic music, is in fact a highly complex artwork of linguistics,
especially of phonology concerning the transformation of vowels and consonants.
Given the three examples of Berio, Stockhausen und Xenakis, maybe Berio‘s work is
the best example to demonstrate how complex the material of contemporary music
can become. For musicological research methods, this demands especially higher
capacity in the analytical tools and a bigger requirement for them in general.
Individual sections of musicology like systematic or historic research are not able to
cope with such diverse phenomenons on their own. A cooperation of different
disciplines is more than necessary in order to understand the manifestations – the
phonological artwork of Berio‘s and Eco‘s Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) is calling such
an approach maybe in the most drastic sense.
Berio himself gave a hint of this as the following passages from an interview
demonstrate:

There is in any case one aspect of ‘‘syntax’’ (…) that has always interested me:
that of redundancy. (…) Redundancy and repitition have sometimes been at the
centre of my preoccupations even outside electronic music: in certain parts of
Epifanie, for example and perhaps even more than anywhere else in Circles.19

17 Luciano Berio, Two Interviews with Rossana Dalmonte and Bálint András Varga,
(London / New York: Marion Boyars, 2009), 142-143
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. 125-125
 Figure 6: Syntax theory as a new possible interdisciplinary research field in music analysis.

This statement is opening up the discussion about interdisciplinary musicology to

new areas, which have not been regarded yet as a factor, such as for instance syntax
theory which is shown in figure 6 and can be used as a new analytical tool in
musicology.

Conclusion

The demonstration of contemporary music material has clarified the need for
interidisciplinarity in musicology, which is today still not enough since there is a new
demand for sciences like linguistics and structural grammar. Looking at what musiké
had been during the antiquity and how it has developed, this old concept can be seen
as a paragon of how musicology can be practiced also analytically in the future in
order to keep up with the ideas and materials of contemporary music. In summary, it
can be said that musicology needs to be capable of complex understanding through
cooperation of different disciplines.

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