L'histoire sociale de la musique en France: Quelques aspects de base (I)

• Published in: International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music Vol. 19; no. 2; pp. 229 - 258
• Main Authors: Supičić, Ivo, Supicic, Ivo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; German
• Published: Council of the Academies of Sciences and Arts of the SFR of Yugoslavia, Academy of Music of the University in Zagreb, Department for Musical Art and Musicology of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts 01-12-1988
• Subjects: Review Papers / Pregledni Članci
• ISSN: 0351-5796; 1848-6924
• DOI: 10.2307/836787

Social History of Music in France: Some Basic Aspects (I). Elements of the social history of music can be traced in French musicology since the beginning of the 20th century, and partially even since the end of 19th century. Jules Combarieu brought the anthropological and sociological approach into his historical analyses. Some other French music historians at the beginning of the century, such as Lionel de La Laurencie and especially Michel Brenet, saw musical life in its social context and brought elements of its social history. When such approaches were again intensified by French music historians of the second half of the century, they represented only a continuation of an older tradition. This is especially applicable to the musicological school of Norbert Dufourcq, which - through its orientation and thorough investigation of the archival material from the 17th and 18th centuries - laid foundation for further and more intense research in the field of the social history of music. In order to illustrate more concretely themes, approaches and some results in detail, elements are presented in works by Nanie Bridgman (on musical life in the 15th and the first third of the 16th century in Italy, with special attention given to the social status of musicians), Jean-Michel Vaccaro (on social status of instrumentalists, especially of lutenists, in the 16th century), Jean-Michel Guilcher (on social function of dance, especially the contredanse, in the 18th century), Marcel Beaufils (on musical life, its forms, protagonists and public in Germany in the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century), Danièle Pistone (on the piano as a status symbol and the instrument of the bourgeois strata in the 19th century, as reflected in the literary works of the time) and Joseph-Marc Bailbé (on relations between the bourgeoisie and music in the 19th century).