[1] Musicologist David R.M. Irving recently published his new book with Oxford University Press: ‘The Making of European Music in the Long Eighteenth Century’.
[2] In musicology, the term ‘European music’ is commonly used to refer to music that originated in Europe. However, as obvious as this term may seem at first glance, it is not without its problems. Historically, it is linked to the development of European identity in the context of colonialism.
[3] Irving is concerned with a critical reflection of the conceptual foundations of his academic discipline, musicology. At the same time, he is interested in more: examining the role of early modern music theories and debates in the context of the construction of European identity.
[4] The focus is on the ‘long 18th century’ (ca. 1670 – ca. 1820), but the study also includes medieval sources and those from the later 19th century. In the following, I will discuss a few aspects of the book, but it offers much more than I will cover here.
[5] Research on ideas and concepts of Europe in the early modern period is broad and Irving draws on this research in its diversity. This also means that Irving uses primary sources and research literature in many languages – a real virtue that is unfortunately lacking in many English-language publications.
[6] Research into the construction of European identity in this period usually does not consider music as a source, or only marginally. Quite wrongly, as Irving proves.
[7] The author meticulously examines the wording since the Middle Ages: When was ‘European music’ first spoken or written about? Which word combinations with the adjective ‘European’ in the context of music became common and when? Who were the speakers?
[8] Evidence of the term ‘European music’ has existed since the 1670s; later, the term ‘Republic of Music’ was coined – if you will, a typical attitude of the Enlightenment. We also find “European ear” etc. Another term, ‘occidental’ or ‘western’ music, was gradually reinterpreted, albeit mainly after 1800: in place of the direct reference to Christianity, initially mainly Catholicism, ‘western’ became ‘modern western‘, which referred to a secularised interpretation of the West in the sense of an allegedly extremely progressive civilisation. ‘European music’ did the same.
[9] The background to the term ‘Europan Music’ is quite complex. In the course of European colonialism since the 15th century, knowledge of musical instruments and music outside Europe grew, comparisons were drawn, differences perhaps overemphasised. European music therefore referred to something that was different from the music in China, Japan, the Americas, etc.
[10] Nevertheless, there was always the problem that in Europe, sometimes polemically, the Italian, French, German, Spanish or English ‘musical style’ was compared and contrasted with each other, and occasionally disparaged. The term ‘European music’ levelled these differences by searching for a ‘European essence’ in music that would make it distinguishable as such and as a whole from non-European music. This brought up the construction of European identity through music.
[11] Jesuits played a decisive role in China, Japan and the Americas, especially Central and South America. Here, comparisons were made and new terms coined. The Jesuits, whose letters and writings from and about China, Japan, etc. were widely received in Europe and exerted a great deal of influence, belonged to that transnational European social group that I defined in my book on the history and future of European identity as the (early modern) ‘European demos’. In the early modern period, this group was small in number, but all the performative speech acts by which Europe’s identity was constructed can be traced back to this ‘European demos’, which only expanded into a real demos after the Second World War.
[12] A decisive motive was the intercultural comparison in the context of colonial expansion. The view that ‘European music’ was more advanced and more perfect than non-European music was established early on. In the late 18th century, so-called European music was incorporated into the narrative of the superiority of European civilisation and linked to the incipient division of humanity into ‘races’.
[13] Irving is able to link his research findings well with research on ‘Orientalism’ as a theoretical element of Eurocentrism.
[14] The book is compelling. The sheer number and diversity of sources and voices, however, demands a lot from the reader. The book is important for more than just musicology. History can benefit greatly from it.
Quote as: Wolfgang Schmale: „The Making of European Music“ between European Self-identification and Colonialism – About David R.M. Irving’s new book. In: Wolfgang Schmale: Weblog Mein Europa: https://wolfgangschmale.eu/the-making-of-european-music-between-european-self-identification-and-colonialism/ blog post 13 November 2024 [ n° §]
