Musicology – A Belated Scholarly Discipline?

Abstract

The article deals with the place and social role of musicology on the threshold of a united Europe, taking into account the great political changes that have caused reverberations throughout the humanities, and have brought about many uncertainties so that no one knows how they will affect the discipline in question (especially with those nations that have hardly realized their state sovereignty). This question is therefore not only of topical but also of broader interest. Thus, the article takes up the well-known German polemics (Musikwissenschaft – quo vadis?) that errupted in the late eighties, following the unsatisfactory effectiveness of musicology regarding public life and (failed) attempts to restore humanistic principles. Chairs of musicology at various universities were then taken under scrutiny, accompanied by blames for failed education of musicologists. The topicality of this question is of general interest, since musicology appears to be a discipline of national importance, carrying predominant responsability as regards the musical consciousness of a nation. Unfortunately, Slovene musical heritage cannot boast about any political privileges. It depends only upon its own strength, despite its inherent paucity of researchers, since the amount of research material exceeds far and wide current (only as regards their numbers rejuvenating) human capacities. Hence, its ever greater dependency on efficacious concepts, within which only talent and personal creativeness remain the chief upholders of the discipline. All of which, with new times dawning, is becoming a problem in Slovene musicology in spite of proverbial »Slovenian hardiness«.