La recherche en Musicologie

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 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). In 2017, France’s two national conservatory, in Paris and in Lyon, enrolled 1890 students; 30 publicly supported permanent orchestras employed nearly 2,000 musicians. Emblematic of research tied to musical practice—as exemplified by the Doctorate in interpretation—organizations such as the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/ Musique (IRCAM, Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) and the Cité de la Musique bring together musicians, composers, and scholars to collaborate on exploring and advancing the French ars musica. Plus...