Review

Reviewed Work(s): Foundations of Music History by Carl Dahlhaus and J. B. Robinson

Review by: Keith Falconer
Source: Journal of the Royal Musical Association , 1986 - 1987, Vol. 112, No. 1 (1986 -
1987), pp. 141-155
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association

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DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 141

professional life with equal thoroughness is merely to point out that

this whole subject is too vast to be dealt with adequately in a single
volume of less than blockbuster proportions. More serious, though,
even in this limited space, is the lack of any consideration of the
punitive effects of music-making at all levels of the Entertainment
Tax. One of those wartime introductions which long outlive the
conditions which brought them into being, during the 1920s and
1930s it all too often made the difference between a musical organiz-
ation managing to keep its head above water and being forced to
disband. And it might have been helpful to have a more detailed
discussion of the relations between the BBC in its early days and the
musicians in whose eyes everything it did, from broadcasting musical
trash whose literary equivalent would never conceivably be heard on
the air (i.e. dance bands and crooners) to forming its own orchestra
and venturing into live concert promotion, was bound to be
irredeemably crass.
However, even these criticisms should not be interpreted as de-
tracting from the great value of a book which presents a great deal of
new research in an eminently readable form, and should be as
fascinating to the general reader as it will be indispensable to the
student. All the same, it does have one important failing, and that is in
presentation. At this price there should not be anything like this
number of printing errors; some are venial enough, though there are
still too many of them, but it is impossible to condone mis-spellings of
well-known proper names, let alone mistakes such as those which
place the founding of the Musical Association 30 years too soon, or, by
adding a letter to his Christian name, oblige the critic Edwin Evans to
undergo a sex-change.
Elizabeth Roche

Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations of Music History, translated by J. B. Robin-

son. Cambridge, University Press, 1983. 177 pp. ISBN 0 521 23281
3 (hard covers); 0 521 28990 3 (paperback).

A recent spate of translations has made Professor Dahlhaus one of the

best known and one of the more widely read of living musicologists.
Part of his fame is no doubt due to his forceful and elegant style, but
there is a danger that his work will come to be admired more for its
superficial qualities than its remarkable insight into problems of
knowing and meaning in music. The present volume, first published
in 1977 as Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte, may draw attention to some of
the best features of his historical writing. The book consists of a series
of essays, reflections on the nature and practice of music history (not
quite the systematic treatise the title seems to imply). A number of
common ideas are prominent in all, or most, of the chapters, and chief
among these is the significance of the musical 'work'. In itself this

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 142 REVIEWS

sounds like trivial observation. But one of the central conclusions of

the book - not a starting-point - is that pride of place in music history
should be given not to composers or to abstract 'social forces' but
musical works in all their individuality. The cause of the work is
defended on almost every page with energy if not always with grace: at
times it can be very difficult to distinguish friend from foe amid the
clashing swords of dialectic. The importance of the work is not that it
provides 'evidence for ideas, processes or structures lying primarily
outside the realm of art' (18) but that it represents a complex and
self-sufficient expression of the composer's intentions. The work is to
be experienced entire, as if in isolation from the world. We shall see
that this view of the work provides a convenient defence against a
danger Dahlhaus is particularly anxious to avoid: the encroachment of
relativism on the historian's judgment.
A familiar theme in modern thought is the alleged decline of
history, which has concerned historians both as a moral problem and
as a methodological one. A favourite cause of the decline among
British and American scholars has been the methods of the social
sciences and their tendency to obscure the complexities of histo
change. Dahlhaus is suspicious of notions of change in histo
because of the simple forms of causality they seem to imply, and
first chapter, 'Is History on the Decline?', deals with the same t
in a rather different way. Whether for political or other rea
history is increasingly endangered by an insidious pressure on his
ans to tell society what it wants to hear about the past. The search
historical 'truth' has been subordinated to visions of the future, so
that the 'font of historical awareness' has been shifted 'from the past
to the future' (8). History requires participation from the reader as
much as from the historian, and conflicts between the intentions of
historical documents and posterity are inevitable. Such conflicts are
not always easily resolved. But by taking the future as the object of
historical explanation the past is not so much explained as used.
Dahlhaus glides deceptively from the misuse of history to the
specific problems of interpreting historical sources. It is true that the
two are related in the sense that misinterpretation often leads to
misuse, but there are moral consequences in the misuse of history that
do not always result from the misinterpretation of sources. Although
the material of history consists of documents and other artefacts from
the past, these are not in themselves history. What is needed in
addition, according to Dahlhaus, is an act of interpretation that will
resolve disagreements among the sources and lead to historical
understanding. The central problem of music history is how to
interpret musical works in such a way that the result is historical and
not simply a commentary on technical matters.
Making history from music is a complex task requiring a delicate
balance of different kinds of information. There are particular diffi-
culties involved in giving special prominence to a single element of
music history, and this is well illustrated by the case of histories of

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 DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 143

musical style as promulgated by those, such

wanted to reconcile their aesthetic sensibilities with the demands of
historiography' (18). Dahlhaus agrees with the central postulat
musical works are important,' and some fine works of history hav
been the result. But the problem with style history has always bee
that in order to account for changes in the form of musical work
number of structures are imposed from without. The work is reduc
to a mere source of information and the chronological succession i
subjugated to rigid frameworks of 'style periods' and national
'schools'. Some of these impositions are the result of transferring
history ideas that had their origins in biology, a common tendency
the nineteenth century now known as organicism.2 Inanimate obje
are ascribed characteristics of living beings, a kind of thinking whi
has led to the perversion of such terms as 'modern' and 'medieval'.
is true that musicians throughout the world have often describ
musical works as in some way organic; they also speak of 'nation
schools' and take an organicist view of the immediate past. To som
extent these are matters of historical fact, but as principles of mus
history they are both too vague and too rigid. What is missing
strangely enough, is not a general sense of history but a particular
sense of the uniqueness and value of individual works. The exce
tional or unique fits uncomfortably amongst the typical and commo
place in the history of musical style.
It is plain that in any kind of music history there will be a certai
tension between the differing claims of musical works and histori
explanation, but Dahlhaus proposes a rather drastic solution to h
problem of preserving the integrity of the work. His starting-point
the Marxist theory of the 'relative autonomy' of art and art history
according to which the relations between art and the supposed
economic base of society are not strictly determined. But this is not
say that music history cannot lead to improved understanding
social conditions in the past:
Works of music receive their documentary or historiological significan
not in isolation from, but precisely by virtue of, their essence as art. Thu
in the course of that 'social decoding' expounded and practised by Adorn
the element of artifice must never be given short shrift even though

' Some reflections on the history of musical style have appeared in English independently
those in the histories themselves. Donald J. Grout ('Current Historiography and Music Histor
Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk, ed. Harold S. Powers (Princeton, 1968), 23-40 (
34-8)) is persuasive and clear, and his theories are reflected in his famous A History of West
Music (3rd edn, New York, 1980) and A Short History of Opera (2nd edn, New York, 1965). L
Treitler ('The Present as History', Perspectives of New Music, 7 (1969), 1-58 (pp. 33-44)) is a quirk
and energetic protest against the assumptions underlying three one-volume histories of mus
published in English during the 1960s - Grout's not among them.
2 See Michael Broyles, 'Organic Form and the Binary Repeat', The Musical Quarterly,
(1980), 339-60, Ruth A. Solie, 'The Living Work: Organicism and Musical Analysis', 19th Centu
Music, 4 (1980), 147-56, and Robert Pascall, 'Organicist Meditations', Music Analysis, 1 (1982
112-15 for an exchange on the subject. A satisfactory historical account of organicism in mu
has yet to be written.

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 144 REVIEWS

aesthetic iso
music such
means that
against it, in

In the chap
are examin
determinis
postulate': m
society (12
causes, the
Marxists wo
its own without depending on external events for a sense of
continuity? This is nowhere fully explained; Dahlhaus would probably
object to any suggestion that music history is continuous at all, in the
sense of following a straight line. Yet the very acts of selecting,
describing, interpreting and describing, the nature of the historian's
craft, require special forms of continuity, if only provisional ones. A
promising line of thought, and no more than that, is the possibility of
a formalist history of music as suggested by Viktor Shklovsky and the
other Russian formalists for literature and the cinema. Structural
changes in the language of an art lead to new forms of compositi
whenever the older forms are exhausted. If an older form is cultivated
after becoming exhausted the result is kitsch. Theories of this sort
seem to offer the possibility of combining the aesthetics of music with
history instead of metaphysics (127), and the resulting history would
be 'continuous and self-contained, rather than disjointed and depen-
dent on external conditions' (128). But these are somewhat exagger-
ated claims, for a theory of musical formalism would not so much
produce continuity as assume it a priori: periods in process of great
change would be almost impossible to explain in formalist terms
Dahlhaus takes the matter little further than this. But he is possibly
right in believing that formalism may represent a way of solving one of
the most pressing problems in music history: 'how to write an art
history that is a history of art' (129).
Like the critic, if not the analyst, the music historian is obliged to
consider problems of value in music. It is clear that the choice of
works to be mentioned in a work of music history will depend among
other things on a series of value judgments: one work may be included
as 'typical' of a certain tendency, another rejected as merely 'experi-
mental'; still another may be mentioned solely because it is 'a
masterpiece'. Standards of judgment that do not take into account the
intrinsic merit of the work no doubt constitute 'offences' against the
autonomy principle, but they are not therefore unhistorical. As
standards of judgment are based on norms that change with time,
they are often enshrined in traditions that form a canon: in Western
music this is a process which has continued ever since the awakening
of interest in music history during the late eighteenth century. The

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 DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 145

canon is by definition a received set of values, and by

the historian can as it were share directly in the va
(95-101). The usefulness of the canon is that because
certain independence from individual taste they can
they transcended history. An additional motive seem
special emphasis on the canon: the idea of value i
immune from the threat of relativism. It is typ
attitude towards morality in history that the histo
must always be binding on both past and present. T
accept the judgment of the past upon itself without
ation would be to renounce history altogether.
But although the values of the canon are perma
lished, it is difficult to specify just. where its values
piece of music. One reason for this is that opinions
notoriously fickle, and the fame of a piece may be
opinions as to what is valuable in music. If the h
among conflicting views, the result is a concession
might be possible to argue with the Marxists that
closely bound up with social and economic factors th
better replaced by social criticism. But this would b
music by details of no more than incidental impo
Dahlhaus does is to look for a universal standard o
same standard need not apply to every work, but the
that exceed the ordinary concerns of aesthetics. By c
work in isolation, 'an interpretation arises that allow
place of an individual work in history by reveal
contained within the work itself (29). But opposed to
of a work is its 'immanence', those qualities which ad
throughout its history and resist the ravages of tim
of a work is a point at which aesthetics and history
It is nevertheless possible, without self-contradiction, t
ledge into aesthetic perception, and by the same token
experiences as points of departure for historical investiga
the nineteenth-century symphony that did not build u
ation of the immanence of the Eroica would lack all sense of direction. Of
course one offends against the aesthetic raison ditre of art works by
analysing them as documents in a social, intellectual or technical history of
music; but this does not imply that one must refrain from considering the
results of historical studies of this sort when interpreting the aesthetic
essence [bei der Deutung des Kunstcharakters] of those works. Aesthetic and
documentary observations, while motivated by opposing interests, are not
necessarily based on different and mutually exclusive groups of facts; just
which sorts of facts are to be used in an historical or an 'immanent'
interpretation is not determined a priori but must be decided upon in each
individual case. (32)

It is clear from the original, if not from the translation, that the
distinction between aesthetics (Asthetik) and the artistic character
(Kunstcharakter) of music is not always clearly drawn. For although the

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 146 REVIEWS

two are clos

character o
aesthetics a
artistic objec
immanence
music hist
Platonic ide
unsuccessfu
such a resol
uncomfort
reality of ar
imperfectl
terminology
'ideal object
We might s
statements a
else, what e
Whether a p
the questions
Historians h
interpretat
understandi
increasingly
matic, num
the reliabili
disciplines o
symptom of
knowledge.
sense that d
Received accounts of historical events were subjected to intense
scrutiny and found wanting in many cases. A classic example of
reassessment in music history is Gevaert's account of the role of
Gregory the Great in the compilation of 'Gregorian chant':3 the
familiar belief that Gregory was the composer of the famous melodies,
albeit under divine influence, was a tradition that originated more
than a century after his death.
But there is a danger that historians professing the kind of certainty
that these methods seem to offer will become distrustful of all
traditions. The immutability of tradition seems incompatible wi
scientific view of history, which sees the past as a state of cont
flux. This tradition critique has the effect of unloosening the ties b
past and present, a precondition for historicism as Dahlhaus
understands the term: 'Historicism has its roots in the realization that
a gap exists between the aspirations of the present and the imprint left
upon the present by the past' (53). The most remarkable consequenc

3 Francois Auguste Gevaert, Les origines du chant liturgique de l'iglise latine: Itude d'histoire musical
(Ghent, 1890).

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 DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 147

of historicism is the modern preference for

concert halls, recital rooms and opera houses
popular only when it is popular. It might be arg
vogue for recreating historical performing practi
an effect of historicism in music. There is indeed a 'twisted aesthetical
paradox' (70) in the assumption that the past is readily accessible yet
at the same time alien to the present. It is only right that we adjust the
music of the past to suit the demands of the present, and by such
means we become familiar with music of the past. But we lapse into
historicism if we believe that musical works exist in the present as
they existed in the past because we substitute an imaginary past for
the real one. The dangers of historicism are easily seen in claims that
a piece of music has been 'influenced' by another: these are rarely
convincing without a sophisticated balance of technical observation
and documentary evidence. Historicism is a fruitful source of unverifi-
able statements.
But the association of historicism with tradition critique and the new
methods of historical research in the nineteenth century is exagger-
ated. Philosophers of history have always argued against historicism,
as they understand the term, and they have carefully distinguished it
from the claims of history to be a science. What Dahlhaus seems to be
doing is to denigrate the cause of 'scientific' history in the interests of
arguing for increased awareness of tradition; but there is no real
reason why the two should conflict. Historicism was a form of
misinterpretation, a destination that was reached by many paths, but
it was not an inevitable result of historical methods. And although the
proponents of tradition critique were often biased against tradition, their
efforts led in the end to increased understanding that was not always
purely historical.
Dahlhaus's account of the importance of tradition in music history
is derived chiefly from Gadamer's theory of historical interpretation in
Wahrheit und Methode.4 Gadamer's insistence on a reconciliation of
history with tradition and the rehabilitation of prejudice has h
important consequences for the study of hermeneutics in almost eve
field. Not that these are accepted without a number of reservation
most of them well known in German academic discourse. Dahlhaus
objects reasonably that historians may assimilate the past into th
own experience instead of searching out those elements of the pa
that are foreign to the present (59). But he is mistaken if he mean
say that a tradition can be known without the hermeneutic proces
reassimilation: there is some confusion over this point. As we are t
later, tradition can be made into an object of historical enquir
conduit through which music and ideas about music can pass, and
the same time a process affecting their transmission through hist
(65). It is in this sense, of reflection upon the nature of a tradition, th

SHans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundziige einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (T

ingen, 1960), 250-360.

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 148 REVIEWS

St Gregory
chant'. The
makes clear
distinction,
conventions
utions know
a tradition
difference i
tvisingur can
Singverein w
in Vienna p
Although t
than meth
determining
history. Du
dominate al
new, of cour
history, th
theme, but
composers f
topos in the
a 'history w
piecemeal,
developmen
fallen foul
has often be
of fashion;
historians.
criteria the
believe ther
involved in
work of hist
the issue.
The continuity of history is something more than a product of the
historian's interpretation of sources. It is a narrative, a fiction that
may be suspended at any time. The devices used to evoke an
impression of continuity are many and various: some, like the
'expansion' of sonata form or the 'development' of the 6-4 chord, rely
on formalist metaphors to illustrate changes in habits of composition;
others, like the history of music at a royal palace, rely on structures for
a kind of continuity that works alone might not be able to justify.
These devices are abstractions from the past but they are not, strictly

5 Walter D. Allen, Philosophies of Music History (New York, 1939; repr. 1962), 262.
6 Just how the form is affected by the choice of periods in music history, and vice versa, forms
the subject of two recent studies in German: Werner Braun, Das Problem der Epochgliederung in der
Musik, Ertriige der Forschung, 73 (Darmstadt, 1977) and Werner D. Freitag, Der Entwicklungs-
begriff in der Musikgeschichtsschreibung: Darstellung und Abgrenzung musikhistorischer Epochen, Taschen-
biicher zur Musikwissenschaft, 30 (Wilhelmshaven, 1980).

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DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 149

speaking, causal. Several interpretations o

criss-cross in such a way that an illusion of
preserved for long without disruption. The
object that continuity of any kind is a falsificati
implies at least the vestiges of causal expla
implicit account of how causation operates
ations are not verifiable. But they hardly nee
that musical works and historical documen
when bound together by 'mental construc
descriptive of a structure (40-3). This is appr
the Hegelian distinction between res gestae, w
causality, and historia rerum gestarum, which is.
here: if musical works or techniques are or
succession, undue emphasis is placed on the
Most forms of music with a strong tradition
European music of the Middle Ages, tend to av
falls within certain strictly defined boundari
are extremely important for the understandin
occur. The 'aesthetic premise' of originality i
late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries need
status of a principle governing the whole o
Dahlhaus is surely right in believing that the
been unduly emphasized in music history. Bu
questioning the value of taking the standards o
as the basis of historical continuity on the gr
entail disregarding all evidence of change in e
no consciousness of history (13). This is va
restrictive. Problems of 'historical consciou
difference to the choice of 'mental constructs
of continuity, but they are not the sole criteria.
An attractive solution to the problem of no
reception.7 All belief in the work of art as an
reality to which all interpretation aspires, is d
dialogue among minds - the composer and h
historian and the composer's early imitators, a
form of intellectual history that when applied
its coherence from the details of musical comp
some value in reception history but only as
(165) serving a history of works. In Dahlh
history is a means of documenting the continu
the story of how the 'ideal type' is revealed in hi
an abstraction from the circumstances of com
'idea' that does not belong to history. Receptio
the changing representations of an ideal type

7 Wirkungs- or Rezeptionsgeschichte. According to Dahlhaus, 'th

that sets the process in motion, the latter the public towards
(150). The distinction is neat, but by no means true for every com

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 150 REVIEWS

to the prese
step from t
history, a c
works. And
owes more t
'prestigious'
Thanks to the
'actualised' fr
continuity t
performance
(160)
Just what the substance of prestige might be is not made clear.
Perhaps the analysts have come close to it in their theories of musical
'logic'. The problem with the theory of prestige, as with theories of
musical logic, is that it could only apply to works that already
belonged to some kind of canon. There could hardly be a test of
musical prestige that did not depend on a prestigious reception.
The problem of continuity is never completely solved. Dahlhaus
gives in to relativism at what would seem to be the most important
place to avoid it:
When we surrender the ideas whose realisation was once thought to make
history intelligible, the continuity or inner cohesion of events disinte-
grates, with the result that we can no longer substantiate our decisions as
to what does and does not 'belong to history'. Yet it looks as if this
controversy can be, if not settled, at least ameliorated by conferring
relative rather than absolute validity upon the key principles, with
empirical confirmation stepping in to fill the gap left by their weakened
claims to universality. (11)
The passage is not a little obscure. It is nevertheless clear that in
assigning only a relative value to the 'key principles' of music history
Dahlhaus leaves the historian with no firmer ground to stand on than
the works themselves - which may have been his intention. But in that
case how can we possibly 'substantiate our decision as to what does or
does not "belong to history"'? Where Dahlhaus seems to have gone
wrong is to underestimate the importance of interaction among his
'key principles'. What the historian actually does, I think, is not to
follow ideas one by one but to combine them into a network, each idea
related to the other and all drawing from a common fund of sources. A
single datum acquires its significance not in a single train of thought
but at the point of intersection with other ideas. The 'validity' of a
single idea, be it a technical procedure, a structure, a tradition, or
some sort of background material, depends on whether or not it is
compatible with others. The continuity of history as I see it is the
depiction of a network of ideas in as much richness as the sources will
permit.
Dahlhaus's view of hermeneutics in music history is rooted in a
meticulous concern for the strangeness or 'otherness' of the past. But

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 DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 151

this is not the same as alienation, which for Dahlh

worst excesses of tradition critique. Although the
only indirectly, music of the past comes alive in
not subjected to the facile trick of trying to
performances of works we know well. The histori
out the strange or the 'other', but for somewhat dif
The task of historical hermeneutics is to make alien
sible, i.e. material that is remote in time or in social
doing, we do not deny its extrinsic or intrinsic d
instead make this distance part of the process of per
the context of the present as opposed to viewing
historical standpoint. In other words, an aesthetic pr
historical insight embraces rather than bypasses
otherness or alienness. (5)

The historian compares sources and offers explan

them - for what he finds. The process by which
at explanations has long been the object of specu
historians and philosophers. This is mainly b
importance of history in the thought of the ninetee
number of attempts to reconcile historical con
emerging social sciences and theories of know
ingredient was the 'act of understanding' (Verste
which the mind could be led to knowledge of
unfamiliar. The 'philosophical subject', the min
projects itself into the material and arrives at an
past by means of a dialogue with historical 'ag
history. Certain forms of consciousness are p
between the two, and these have been describe
'general ego' (Dilthey), 'human rationality in a
Humboldt), or simply 'thought' (Collingwood).
formulated such theories wished to establish norms for research in the
humanities, so that the historians tried to reduce the act of understan-
ding to a form of methodology, and the philosophers sought to find
new solutions to the classic problem of knowing other minds. Their
concern for the motives and intentions of individuals led reasonably to
what Dahlhaus calls 'intrinsic' history, as opposed to the 'extrinsic
history of social forces which relies on 'caused or functional interpret
ations' (83). I suppose that 'intrinsic' explanation would have to result
from some kind of intrinsic interpretation, at least in Dahlhaus's
terms, and what this could be is difficult to say; it would certainly
involve consideration of the psychological and might even lead to the
irrational. Is it acceptable to mix fact and symbol in a work of history?
Many historians have tried to do so, and not without success.
Dahlhaus is careful to qualify his enthusiasm for intrinsic explanation

8 For a thorough account of the various applications of the term, see Karl-Otto Apel, 'Das
Verstehen (Eine Problemgeschichte als Begriffsgeschichte)', ArchivfJir Begriffsgeschichte, 1 (1955),
142-99.

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 152 REVIEWS

on a number
would be w
arguments.
A common o
thus reached
interpretatio
such theorie
required ma
imagination.
of understan
historian adm
an appeal to
the circum
objections to
possibility o
for interpr
students of
ation ought
relations am
ation' and 'u
intellectual tradition in continuous ferment. Yet within the same
tradition there is room for an absolute denial of interpreta
According to certain theories of knowledge, the world is appreh
directly by the mind and is known without mediation. The tas
explanation is not separate from interpretation, or, to put it an
way, it is almost impossible to think of interpretation separately
explanation. We explain the world on the basis of what we know
we deceive ourselves if we believe that explaining the past i
necessary consequence of interpreting data, raw or otherwise, b
both the data and the interpretation carry with them assumption
need to be explained. The historian is painfully aware that the p
describes is not always identical to the past depicted in his sour
and that is why the historian offers explanations not only for th
but also for his sources. And the reader too may find new explan
for the evidence the historian has offered. Either all is interpret
or nothing is interpretation.
Not a few historians, I think, would recognize their own atti
towards their work in a more detailed account of these theorie
Music historians are notoriously suspicious of interpretation, an
may be due to the difficulty of describing features of musical work

9 Theodore Abel, 'The Operation called Verstehen', Readings in the Philosophy of Scie
Herbert Feigl and May Brodbeck (New York, 1953), 677-87 (p. 686).
'o Karl-Georg Faber, Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft, Beck'sche schwarze Reihe, 78, 5
(Munich, 1982), 128-46.
" I would hesitate to describe the mere denial of interpretation alone as 'positivist'.
terms 'positivism' and 'idealism' have recently been used in discussions of music histo
they were opposites, which they are not, and both terms have been simplified to the p
absurdity. All sense of their common origins in nineteenth-century criticism of Kant
lost.

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 DAHLHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 153

natural language, the classic medium of interp

more careful in his terminology and more circu
ments than most of his imitators, but I find his reflections on
hermeneutics unconvincing because of his uncritical insistence on
interpretation. There is, of course, no reason why the historian should
not think in terms of interpretation, but it is a duty to which not
everyone is called. As almost any statement in a work of history might
be counted as interpretation, so the benefits of interpretation may be
only marginal. It may lead historians in the future to take greater
interest in the history of ideas, a field in which Dahlhaus is pre-
eminent, or simply to think more carefully as they go about their
business. But the distinction between those who claim to interpret
and those who do not may be as much cultural as methodological.
The techniques of historical narrative have long interested the
writers of textbooks on the methodology of history, not to mention
those historians (like Braudel) who have sought to make radical
changes in the nature of their discipline. But historical narrative is
receiving increasing attention from literary theorists and others who
are interested in how the structure of a text affects its meaning.'2 Just
as the reader brings to the text a degree of experience in dealing with
the past and with other minds, so the historian will try to construct a
narrative in such a way as to engage the reader's attention and satisfy
his expectations. There is discourse between historian and reader as
much as there is between the historian and his sources.
One of the most important devices of historical narrative is th
change of viewpoint. It is as if history were a story told by several
narrators, each of whom knows some of the major episodes but none
whom knows all of them. Whether or not the historian chooses to
appear as himself, a neutral observer, depends on context an
personal preference. In Dahlhaus's terms, every such narrator is a
historical 'subject' (Subjekt, not Gegenstand), and it is for this re
that the chapter on narrative techniques is headed 'Does Mus
History have a Subject?'. One of the simplest forms of narrative
music history is the biography, or 'life and works', of a compo
Provided there is sufficient source material, a single subject -
composer - will emerge to dominate the others. Another kind
narration with a single subject at its centre might be the history o
genre such as the motet or concerto, but there are serious difficul
in making a subject out of such abstract ideas (46-7). Dahlhaus arg
persuasively that music history with only a single subject 'bea
circular relation to historical narration': 'the subject does not sim
"have" a history; it must produce one, and only in so doing doe
become a subject at all' (45). The single subject is by no mean
essential to the continuity of historical narrative. What Dahlhaus
would prefer in place of what he calls the 'biographical model' of

12 A survey of recent work in the field is Hayden White, 'The Question of Narrative in
Contemporary Historical Theory', History and Theory, 23 (1984), 1-33.

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 154 REVIEWS

music histo
Proust and
combination
illustration,
But it migh
narrative h
adopted new
nineteenth
difference i
theory of h
facile analo
criticize, lik
authority of
personages
beings, and
subject. It is
seem to spea
richer texture.
A convenient means of defining narrative is the notion of 'telling a
story', and this is fine as far as it goes. But Dahlhaus takes the
comparison much too far when he tries to classify historical narrative
as a form of explanation:
Whenever a given fact cannot be adequately explained as a consequence of
a particular purpose (i.e. intentionally), or as a case exemplifying a rule
(statistically), or as part of an overriding system (functionally), the
procedure of historical narration will always seem the most suitable
approach, i.e. the fact is made comprehensible by being inserted into a
story, whether this story be continuous or discontinuous, in linear or
broken perspective. (48)

But none of these categories of explanation is mutually exclusive, and

all of them could be subsumed under a general heading of 'historical
narrative' - the word seems to have two senses in the translation.
Little more is said about these categories'3 and how they are
distinguished from one another. This is typical of the whole chapter
on narrative in music history, valuable as it is, for subjects are
continually broached and then left hanging in the air. In some cases it
is possible to think out the ideas for oneself and bring them to some
kind of conclusion. But in others the spectre of self-contradiction
looms so large that it is almost impossible to decide what Dahlhaus
means.

It is not easy to see how the theory of the w

could ever be reconciled with continuous narra
too obtrusive. There is far too little room for the kind of detailed

s Perhaps the 'case exemplifying a rule' is similar to the form of explanation described
Arthur Mendel ('Evidence and Explanation', International Musicological Society: Report of the Eig
Congress, New York 1961, ed. Jan LaRue, ii (Kassel, 1962), 3-18).

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DAH LHAUS, FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC HISTORY 155

explanation that the reader needs if he is to sha

getting to know the past which is so vital to histo
Dahlhaus seems to be advocating instead is a histor
archaeology, in which musical works are comparab
imaginary museum. But if we compare the theories
in Foundations of Music History with some of the s
work, and especially his remarkable Die Musik des 19. J
evident that this is something of an exaggeration.
the work given such a pre-eminent position as t
What Dahlhaus is really arguing for is rather th
about music history should be rooted in comments
derived from other sources, in effect a judicious a
autonomy principle. If this is true, it is a worthy s
one which is likely to affect British and Americ
significant extent. On the contrary, there is a dang
theory of the work will come to be used as a weap
those who, disliking the eclecticism of convention
ods, insist on closer involvement with the work in t
or 'criticism'. In itself this is also a worthy sent
examination and meticulous description of works m
to forms of historical understanding that no am
research - and this includes the growing field of sk
ever give. But we have already seen that an excessiv
the work in music history may undermine some of
features, and Dahlhaus's manifest concern for the p
believe, allow him to accept such a disastrous mi
Foundations of Music History is not without its sh
nevertheless a fine book, the best of the few ever writ
and if read on its own terms it should clarify m
understood either dimly or not at all.
Keith Falconer

14 Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, 6 (Wiesbaden, 1982).

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