Introduction to the Structural History of Music

Overview

The structural history of music emerged from the French historical revolution of the Annales School in the 1930s.
German musicologists, led by Carl Dahlhaus, implemented it at the end of the 20th century.
This was influenced by Thomas Kuhn's structural history of science and George Knepler's sociologizing history of music during the 1960s.
The results are evident in the first seven volumes of the revised edition of Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft.

Structuralism and Structure

Structuralism significantly impacted various social science disciplines in the 20th century, including linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, literature, and history.
The term "structure" (structum) denotes a combination of relationships where the interdependence of parts is defined by their relationship to the whole.
Structure has diverse meanings based on application; even Claude L?vi-Strauss' usage in Mythologiques (1964-1971) and Anthropologie structurale (1973) varies.
Key structuralist works share the concept of a "System," defined as a network of connections between elements or elementary processes that form a disciplined or orderly whole.
Structuralist thinking favors systematic analysis, synchronous methods, and incisive exposition, while criticizing subjectivity, history, and humanism in traditional philosophy.
Since Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique g?n?rale (1916), structuralism influenced Russian formalism and the Prague School's literary theory in the 1930s.
L?vi-Strauss, inspired by R. Jacobson, applied structuralism to anthropology.
After 1965, structuralism extended into psychology, literature, and history, notably in Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), a key work in structural history of science.
Carl Dahlhaus integrated systematic musicology (Guido Adler, 1885) with structural history, leading to his research on the structural history of music.
Dahlhaus's universally accepted masterpiece is Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts (1980), the sixth volume of Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft.

Traditional Historiography vs. Annales School

Traditional historiography reconstructs history using chronicle-type narratives, viewing history as continuous.
The Annales School aims to integrate social science disciplines into history, including geography, sociology, psychology, economics, linguistics, and social-anthropology.
Fernand Braudel: ?L'histoire m'appara?t comme une dimension de la science sociale, elle fait corps avec celle-ci. Le temps, la dur?e, l'histoire s'imposent en fait, ou devraient s'imposer ? toutes les sciences de l'homme. Ses tendances ne sont pas d'opposition, mais de convergence."
History shifts from institutional, event-based, or conceptual narratives to become a history of human beings, as proposed by Karl Marx.
Lucien Febvre: ?Nein. Es gibt keine Geschichte als die des Menschen.?
The Annales School represents an early form of structural history.
Narrative historical chains are replaced by analysis or exposition of historical structure, guided by questions and Braudel's concept of "time-rhythm" (non-simultaneity of simultaneous events).
This shift emphasizes res gestae (accomplishments) over historia rerum gestarum (narrative of events), reflecting structure over event narration.

Kuhn's Paradigm

Kuhn defines a paradigm as an accepted model or pattern, e.g., "amo, amas, amat" in Latin grammar.
Practitioners of paradigms share two characteristics:
- achievements unprecedented enough to attract adherents away from competing scientific activities; and
- sufficient openness to allow redefined groups of practitioners to resolve problems.
Examples include Newton's astronomy, Copernicus' dynamical astronomy, and corpuscular optics.
Transitioning from one paradigm to another requires a scientific revolution or paradigm replacement to promote scientific development.
Paradigms permeate scientific theories across historical periods.
Dahlhaus notes that the concept of a paradigm is partly "au?erwissenschaflicher Natur" and can be confused with a general pattern or model, leading to structural history becoming a "Modeterminus."
While the paradigm concept fascinates scientific historians, it should be viewed as a thinking pattern outside of science itself.
To prevent structural history from becoming a modal term, it must insist on "structure" as its core concept.

Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts: An Embryonic Form of Structural History

Published a year before Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), George Knepler's Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (1961) is a social history of music with an early form of structural history.
It's considered a high-standard work of musicology from the former Soviet Union and East European countries.
Knepler, a student of Guido Adler, worked in East Germany, adhering to Marxist principles.
The book contains seven chapters, with two focusing on the sociology of music:
- "Die Entstehungsgeschichte der b?rgerlichen Musik"
- "Glanz und Elend des b?rgerlichen Musiklebens"
Other chapters discuss music in the 18th century (France, England) and the 19th century (Beethoven, Austria, Germany).
Periodization relies on significant political and social events, showing a strong political tendency, which Knepler acknowledges, quoting Johann Gottfried Seume: "da? ich glaube, jedes gute Buch m?sse n?her oder entfernter politisch sein."
Chapters are divided by nations and composers, common in social history of music.
Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts is permeated with the sociology of music.
Knepler: "Innerhalb der eigentlichen Musikgeschichte darf sich der Forscher, der sich die Darstellung von Zusammenh?ngen, nicht blo? von Tatsachen, zum Ziel setzt, auf Leben und Wirken gro?er Komponisten oder auf die Geschichte der musikalischen Formen nicht beschr?nken. Vielmehr mu? er seine Untersuchung auch auf das stark vernachl?ssigte Gebiet der musikalischen Aktivit?t der Volksmassen erstrecken?."
To understand stylistic change in music, research should focus on:
- "die Funktion und Zielsetzung der Kunst, der Wandel des k?nstlerischen Stils und, bis zu einem gewissen Grad, selbst die k?nstlerischen Mittel lassen sich nur verstehen, wenn man die vielf?ltigen und komplizierten Nervenbahnen blo?legt, welche die Sph?re der Kunst mit dem Sph?ren der materiellen Produktion und der politischen Klassenk?mpfe verbinden."
"die vielf?ltigen und komplizierten Nervenbahnen blo?legt" refers to the functional relationships of music history, constructing the multi-dimensional "structure" advocated by Carl Dahlhaus.

Knepler's limitations

Knepler recognizes that observing music in isolation is incorrect but does not elaborate on the reasons why.
His idea of structural history remains embryonic, lacking systematic historiographical theory.
Following Adler's systematic musicology, Knepler details the structure of 19th-century music regarding music life, compositional technique, and aesthetic ideas.
Example: England as "das Land, in dem sich der Kapitalismus zuerst ausbreitete, auch das Land der ersten ?ffentlichen Konzerte ist."
The social institution accelerates the birth of public concerts featuring Handel and J.Ch. Bach.
He connects timbre changes and crescendo/decrescendo in instrumental music with bourgeois and Enlightenment ideals: "Die unbeschwerte Ausgelassenheit des vor sich hingepfiffenen Liedchens eines Schusterjungen und die philosophisch fundierte Heitenkeit der Doppelfuge haben im Innen des aufgekl?rten B?rgers ihren Schnittpunkt."
Sonata-form and the symphonic cycle are linked to German-Austrian folk song and dance.
The compositional thought of the Classical form of the symphonic cycle is not purely formal but results from music life at the time.
Knepler explains the emergence of the Classical symphony and compositional technique in terms of the enlightened aristocrat in England, emphasizing the sociology of music.
He omits elements of aesthetic ideas of early Romanticist authors, holding a broad sociological perspective on public concerts.
Knepler highlights the promotional role of bourgeois production on public entertainment, previously unmentioned in traditional music history.
Examples: the role of English ballad opera upon British politics and culture represented in The Beggar's Opera, and the characteristics of bourgeois dance and entertainment music (Waltz by Johann Strauss, light music, operetta).
Dahlhaus developed Knepler's vision in Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts when expounding on Trivial music, op?ra bouffe, operetta, and the Savoy Opera.
Knepler avoids the biographical method common in music history literature when discussing Beethoven.
He notes that after signing Heiligenst?dter Will, Beethoven's main work was the "lebensspr?hende[n], von keiner Schwermut getr?bte[n] II. Symphonie," showing "Wie abwegig es ist, in bedeutenden Musik die unmittelbare Widerspiegelung pers?nlicher Erlebnisse zu suchen?."
Instead of positivist and hermeneutical biographical methods, he focuses on compositional technique to explain Beethoven's "new road."
Dahlhaus later uses Knepler's approach in Beethoven und seine Zeit (1987), exploring Beethoven's compositional thought through developing variation and contrasting derivation.

Limitations of Knepler's Approach

Knepler's "Austria" chapter includes only Schubert, Johann Strauss, and Bruckner, while "Germany" includes Mendelssohn, Schumann, Weber, Wagner, and Brahms.
This layout shows that his embryonic structural history has not overcome the frame of the "entweder zeitlich oder ?rtlich oder zeitlich und ?rtlich" of historical musicology.
Bruckner is the only composer after 1871 mentioned, likely due to his periodization ending the 19th century with the Paris Commune (1871).
Despite shortcomings, the concept of the Annale School emerges in the tentative structural history idea in Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Carl Dahlhaus later systematized the structural history of music.

The Structural History of Music

Dahlhaus defines the structure of music as: "In der Musikgeschichtsschreibung war immer schon ein St?ck Strukturgeschichte enthalten: sowohl in der Schilderung von Institutionen und sozialen Rollen als auch in der Bestimmung stilistisch-satztechnischer Normen und herrschender ?sthetischer Ideen."
The principle is to imagine "da? Handlung von Personen oder Gruppen stets den Bedingungen eines ?bergreifenden Bezugssystems unterworfen sind."

Guido Adler and Systematic Musicology

The conception originates from Guido Adler's systematic musicology.
In 1885, Adler started the academic periodical Viertelzeitschrift der Musikwissenschaft.
He published the essay "Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft," dividing musicology into historical and systematical sections.
Historical musicology is summarized as dividing "nach Epochen, gr??eren und kleineren, oder nach V?lkern, Territorien, Gauen, St?dten und Kunstschulen; die Zusammenfassung ist entweder zeitlich oder ?rtlich, oder zeitlich und ?rtlich,"
Systematic musicology is defined as "in der einzelnen Zweig der Tonkunst zuh?chst stehenden Gesetze,"
includes music theory, aesthetics of music, music education, and "Musikologie" (comparative musicology).
Adler's table divides musicology into historical (musical palaeography, notations, historical foundation, historical consecution of law, history of musical instruments) and systematic (music theory, aesthetics, education, comparative musicology).
Adler's goal: "bestehe die Musikwissenschaft aus zwei Kapiteln, deren erstes die Entwicklung der Kunst zum H?chsten beschreibe, und in der zweitem diese h?chsten Gesetze der Kunst dargestellt w?rden."
He aimed to raise musicology to its highest academic level through scientific work on systematic musicology.
Today, 120 years later, Adler's conception has been gradually realized.
The traditional disciplines pursued the concept of "work".
Ethnomusicology (research on the origin of music) and anthropological viewpoints after World War II replaced Adler's dichotomy.
Today, musicology exists as a tripod situation.

Dahlhaus and Systematic Musicology

To construct structural history, Dahlhaus uses systematic musicology, centering on different dimensions: aesthetics of music, sociology of music, and compositional technique.
From the sociological dimension, structural history explains the institution of musical performance and its realization in society.
Example: Public concerts emerged in the 18th century, allowing burgers to appreciate absolute instrumental music, liberating music from functions in the church and court.
From the aesthetic dimension, structural history explains the main aesthetic idea of early Romantic authors (i.e., the idea of absolute music).
From the compositional technique dimension, structural history explains how "musical logic" develops into motif or thematic work to maintain formal composition characteristics for absolute music.
Empirically understandable structures are only partial structures.
Their relationships, which structural history should thoroughly explain, are not clear because they are "ein 'System der Systeme' und nicht eine blo?e H?ufung von neben- und durch einander wirkenden Teilstrukturen".

Correspondence of Systems

The interrelationships of sociology, aesthetics, and compositional technique constitute "das Grundmuster der europ?ischen Musikkultur der letzten Jahrhunderte… er stelle das ?sthetische 'Paradigma' dar, das eine scheinbar heterogene, geschichtlich 'zuf?llige' Ansammlung charakteristischer Merkmale als Teilmomente eines Systems - und insofern als Gegenstand einer die Grenzen zwischen Disziplinen ?berschreitenden Systematischen Musikwissenschaft - kenntlich macht".
Structural history forms a whole system of music corresponding with the "paradigm" in structural scientific history.
It is based on Adler's conception, not a pure imitation of Kuhn's paradigm.
Explaining the structure of music means explaining the substance of works using systematic musicology.
J. G. Droysen believes that historical interest is based on present effect: "Das, was war, interessiert uns nicht darum, weil es war, sondern weil es in gewissem Sinn noch ist, indem es noch wirkt."
Dahlhaus focuses on musical works as the object of interest, as works are the "evidence" of the past.
Aesthetics, sociology of music, and compositional technique are systematic theories that explain the musical work theoretically, compensating for the theoretical deficit of continuity in traditional history caused by narrative methods.
Structural history does not identify with systematic musicology, though both research functional relationships synchronically.
The main difference is their chronological nature: systematic musicology aims at synchronie description and analysis, while structural history aims at a mid-length period of music history.
The concept of "process" complements that of structure, addressing problems dialectically and raising new issues.
Understanding structural history as a process involves highlighting the motivation for compositional success in the conflict between aesthetic perception and compositional norm to construct music history.

Time-Rhythm & Simultaneous Structures

Structures complete the historical process zigzaggedly and emerge successively.
Since rhythms for emergence of structures differ, they substitute continuity with "non-simultaneity of simultaneous," proposed by the Annales School:
- "da? die 'innere Chronologie' geschichtlicher Ph?nomene von der '?u?eren' nicht selten abweicht,… der 'geschichtsphilosophische Ort' einer Erscheinung mit dem empirisch-chronologischen nicht zusammenfallen braucht?."
Braudel elaborates the "time-rhythm" of simultaneously existing structures.
"Time" here refers to overlapping structures, which bring forth various "rhythms" influencing political viewpoints.
Dahlhaus: "Die Strukturen … zu irgendeinem Zeitpunkt nebeneinander bestehen und ineinandergreifend einen geschichitlichen Zustand ausmachen oder determinieren, unterscheiden sich nicht allein durch ihr Alter … sondern auch durch das Zeitma?, in dem sie sich ver?ndern".
Structures may have decades of difference in emergence, so strict chronological simultaneity is unnecessary due to inner relationships.
Example: Schumann and Donizetti are contemporaries, and Liszt's symphonic poem and Offenbach's op?ra bouffe were created almost simultaneously; However, their "non-simultaneity" has structural meaning.
Concepts like "Italian Ars Nova in the 14th Century" and "Czech nationalist music in the 19th Century" have only auxiliary typological meaning and do not represent the inner chronology structure.
Traditional historiography's chronological simultaneity is superficial, while structural history's inner chronology (non-simultaneity) has deeper meaning.

Structural Perspective

Example: Early Romantic aesthetic ideas emerged in northern Germany in the late 18th century, while instrumental music flourished in Austria and southern Germany.
A structural perspective on both reveals the idea of absolute music, otherwise, they would be separate historic factors scattered in various regions at different times.
Traditional history narrates the emergence of instrumental music in the pre-Classical period as a pre-history to the Classical symphony, viewing them as successively developing phenomena.
In structural history, the inner chronology of the symphony can be grasped through public concerts, compositional technique established by Haydn, and early Romantic authors' aesthetic ideas of absolute music.
The performance institution of the public concert makes "die systematische Konstrunktion ?ffnet den Blick daf?r, welche Tatsachen einer Geschichte angeh?ren".
The appearance of non-simultaneity manifests the structures of compositional technique, aesthetic idea, and sociology of music, becoming part of absolute music.
However, the "non-simultaneity of simultaneous" risks "die Strukturgeschichte in Gefahr sei, die eigentlich historische Erkenntnis … einer Bessenheit vom Systemgedanken… zu opfern".
Structural history may sacrifice historical knowledge to seek the highest norm of music art.
Dahlhaus's concept of "State" (Zustand) insists that systems are always phases of a developing process.
The risk is partially overcome by emphasizing structures as phases, recognizing boundaries, and adhering to Adler's "complement of historical and systematic musicology".

Correspondant

The concept of "correspondent" (Entsprechung) is another important category.
"Non-simultaneity of simultaneous" means that structures differ or are not completely different in time, but it does not exclude later-emerging correspondents.
A system of correspondents can be understood as "Idealtypus" in Max Weber's sense.
Weber's Idealtypus: "Idealtypus ?wird einiger Gesichtspunkte und durch Zusammenschlu? einer F?lle von diffus und diskret, hier mehr, dort weniger, stellenweise gar nicht, vorhandenen Einzelerscheinungen, die sich jenen einseitig herausgehobenen Gesichtspunkten f?gen, zu einem in sich einheitlichen Gedankenbilde. In seiner begrifflichen Reinheit ist dieses Gedankenbild nirgends in der Wirklichkeit empirisch vorfindbar, es ist eine Utopie".
Weber gives the example: "alle spezifisch-marxisistischen 'Gesetze' und Entwicklungskonstruktionen - soweit sie theoretisch fehlerfrei sind - idealtypischen Charakter haben".
Idealtypus or correspondent as a Utopian pattern and developing structure could tolerate non-accuracy in time or in place, since "der Gewinn an Verst?ndlichkeit der Zusammenh?nge den Mangel an empirischer L?ckenlosigkeit ?berwiegt".
Idealtypus could explain non-correspondence in time or place of absolute music structures.

Traditional History vs. Structural History

According to entweder zeitlich oder ?rtlich, oder zeitlich und ?rtlich, traditional history narrates events and forms a "chain" of accumulated facts.
Musical history of style or culture emphasizes parts related to genus, style, and cultural context.
Following Adler and the Annales School, structural history explains overall relationships to reconstruct the historical and functional system of music.
Social history views music as a social structure system, considering music as part of a superstructure regulated by economic basis.
Structural history goes beyond this, including compositional technique norms and aesthetic ideas in a music-historical structure.
Structural history differs from social history through giving up centralized historical philosophy and observing structural relationships in multi-dimensional thought; this is the essential difference between Dahlhaus's Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts and Knepler's Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts.

Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts

Dahlhaus expounds the structure using systematic musicology (aesthetics, sociology, compositional technique) instead of Kuhn's paradigm.
Since ancient Greece, Plato's presentation of music dominated Western music ideas: music exists in harmonia (regulated system of tone), rhythm (dance), and logos (language), relating to text or dance.
Gregorian chant, motets, rondos, and Masses show the long tradition of the paradigm in European artificial music.
This was replaced by the paradigm of absolute music from the mid-18th century:
- Aesthetic autonomie principle: "um ihrer selbst willen geh?rt zu werden, statt eine Funktion in einem ?bergreifenden au?ermusikalischen Vorgang zu erf?llen".
- Inner relationship is linked to the aesthetics of talent and originality.
- Commercialization in music influenced the process.
- Public concerts required rapt attention, providing a prerequisite for autonomous work of art, setting norms for concerts and opera.
- The principle manifested as unity in composition (independence of instrumental music, tonal harmony, theme/motif treatment, developing variation).
- Forkel calls it the "logic of music".
Dahlhaus describes absolute music as "eine von ihren Wurzeln in Sprache und Tanz losgerissene Tonkunst" and a "Paradigmenwechsel".
In Dahlhaus' view the 19th century begins in 1814 (Congress of Vienna, Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade, Beethoven's late works) and ends in 1914 (World War I, Richard Strauss' separation from Sch?nberg's modernity, the division of modern music into New Music and neo-Classicism).

Periodization

The book divides the century into shorter periods: 1814, 1830, 1848, 1871, and 1889, referring to political and musical events.
The perspective on absolute music is listed:
Absolute Music is considered a paradigm, under which the non-simultaneity of simultaneous is constituted and expounded in the chapter The Metaphysics of Instrumental Music.
The passages are of its subcategories.

Structural History of Music vs. Traditional Historiography

In Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts, there are no composer/composition listings, biographical descriptions, or music fact accumulations.
Dahlhaus criticizes in Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte that "musikgeschichtliche Darstellung manchmal…als historische Kommentare zu musikalischen Werken - also, pointiert ausgedr?ckt, als Konzert- und Opernf?hrer - benutzt werden".
Traditional historiography remains as quasi-history and cannot complete music history's basic mission: to explain the essence of past works still effective today.
The change that structural history reflects answers the question of whether music history expounds musical works' substance.
Dahlhaus begins his Musik?sthetik (1967) by stating that aesthetics is fulfilled with ambiguous, influential viewpoints because it has historicity. Thus, "the system of aesthetics is its history: a history in which ideas and experiences of heterogeneous origin interpenetrate".
Structuralization in systematic musicology is imperative because of Western music's historicity.
Dahlhaus calls the structural historian a systematizer, indicating the core of structural history is "System is history".
Today, systematic musicology is young, with structural history as evidence, indicating systematic musicology's dominant position relative to historical musicology.