Musicological Research in France

It was in the nineteenth century that the term musicologie appeared in the French language to denote a scientific discipline devoted to musical theory, esthetics, history, creativity, and criticism. Musical research–ars musica in the medieval lexicon, or Musikwissenschaft in German—has developed its own methods of research and scholarship derived from the humanities (literature and linguistics), the social sciences (anthropology and ethnology), and exact sciences (physics and mathematics) The French tradition of theoretical and scientific study of music is long, comprising René Descartes (Abrégé de musique, 1618), Jean- Jacques Rousseau (Dictionnaire de musique, 1767), Jacques Chailley (Historical Treatise of Harmonic Analysis, 1951), Pierre Boulez (On Music Today, 1963). Music scholarship has developed alongside intense musical activity. In 2010, France’s 139 conservatories enrolled 140,000 students; 1,500 professional classical musicians gave 2,000 concerts; and 40,000 popular music concerts attracted nearly 20 million listeners. Emblematic of research tied to musical practice—as exemplified by the recently established Doctorate in interpretation—organizations such as the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM, institute for acoustical and musical research and coordination) and the Cité de la Musique bring together musicians, composers, and scholars to collaborate on exploring and advancing the French ars musica. More...