Current State of Western Music Sociology: Listening to Modern Music and Musical Issues in Contemporary Society

Author: (German) Kneif
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: This book consists of three parts. The first article is a translation of "Problems of Listening to Modern Music" by the German musician Beseler. The author of this article is Heinrich Beseler. He is a renowned German musicologist who initially studied philosophy, mathematics, and multiple natural sciences at the University of Freiburg, while also participating in amateur music society performances as a harpsichordist and flutist. The second article is written by Kneif, a Hungarian-German music sociologist. Regarding the subject of music sociology, Kneif proposed a moderate view in response to two extreme perspectives, one represented by Silbermann and the other by Adorno. He argued that while a single musical work is not the object of study in music sociology, a "genre" is indeed its object of study. It does not examine the specific music, performance, or other content of an opera, but the genre of opera is absolutely a subject of study in music sociology. The third article is by the German musicologist Karlbusitzky of Czech descent. In 1953, he received his doctorate in Prague for his work "An Overview of Worker Songs." Later, he worked and taught at the Academy of Sciences in Prague and Charles University.