Finding a Place for American Studies in American Musicology

Finding a Place for American Studies in American MusicologyAuthor(s): Donald M. McCorkleSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1966), pp. 73-84Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/830872 .

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Finding a Place for American Studies in American Musicology

BY DONALD M. McCORKLE

I

THE CHALLENGE OF AMERICAN STUDIES

EVERY SO OFTEN a young American graduate student in musicology dis- covers North America. When he does he finds it to be an experience

both exhilarating and frustrating, for his educational background has left him almost totally unprepared for it, so, much like Columbus, his discovery has been quite accidentally made by veering off course. His curriculum has been oriented entirely toward studies in European music, emphasizing style periods and genres, and especially the musical monu- ments of the monumental musicians. This is so, in part, because graduate studies in Adlerian historical musicology prescribe the achievement of competency in the mainstreams of stylistic evolution, and in historico- analytical knowledge of masterworks and their composers.

If by definition historical musicology is and continues to be solely the study of cultivated, or fine-art, music in the western European tradition, with the focal point always the great work of art, then admittedly there is, at the present time, precious little justification for including American studies in the basic musicology curriculum. The realistic professor, know- ing the limitations of time and course credits, and the selectivity necessary for his students to achieve any depth in musicology, cannot protest the omission of Americana from already crowded historical and analytical surveys of the mainstreams of western music. Our American music before the 20th century was clearly peripheral to these mainstreams and was, of course, not as grand in quantity or in quality. Moreover, it appears to have been substantially different from European music, much as the American himself differs from the European in constitution of elements, if not by peculiar components at least certainly by the nature of the blend of the elements. The history of American music, perhaps to a greater degree than the European, consists of four essential traditions and three essential streams: the fine-art, popular, folk, and primitive (tribal) traditions, and the transplanted European and African and indigenous Amer- indian streams. How and to what degree these traditions and streams have interacted and interfused is very conjectural in the present state of our



74 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

knowledge. Nonetheless, the general assumption among musicologists seems to be that American studies are not readily reconcilable with traditional studies in European-American musicology, and hence cannot be included in musicology as a branch of learning or a scholarly procedure.

There are dissenters to this persuasion, and I number myself among them, who believe that American studies can be properly reconciled with traditional historical musicology, and that American studies should have a significant place in American musicology. The object of this paper is to examine the prevailing situation and to suggest means and areas in which reconciliation can be achieved.

Exotica, Curiosa, or Musicologica? Our young American graduate student soon finds the essence of the

challenge of American studies to be in the unknown quantity and quality of American music. It is rare, for instance, that he can find even an ele- mentary course in American musical history in the American graduate school, and if he does encounter one the chances are great that he will be discouraged from taking it. Curriculum considerations being what they generally are, an American music course is most often relegated to the miscellaneous category, to be offered spasmodically, and presumably only for music education majors and perennial students in musicology, but rarely for the serious musicologist. An advanced course in, let us say, American bibliography or choral music, is virtually non-existent. So our young musicologist is on his own, and more often than not takes up his challenge against formidable odds: the discouragement of his teachers, his peers, and the apathy of the world of music.

I refer at this point not to the paucity of accessible sources for solid research, which itself is a formidable enough obstacle to deter any but the most dedicated student, but rather to the prevailing attitude among Amer- icans that American music is apparently to be prejudged before it has been found, before it has been studied, and before it has been heard. One can and should protest this attitude which seems to be what we might call an American inverse chauvinism; i.e., a fervid devotion to anything Euro- pean, heightened by an unreasoning contempt for American compositions, especially the fine-art genres. We so often are blinded by the overwhelm- ing brilliance of the supreme masters that we fail to see artistic quality in any lower echelon of the hierarchy. The best of the American masters were not among the seraphim, but were among the cherubim and with them should be compared.

American studies, then, have taken on something of the exotic or curious in classification, and only rarely are accorded the dignity of full musicological status. The stoic Americanist, and he must be stoic if he is an Americanist, therefore smiles when occasionally he sees his repertoire listed among those delicacies and salacities which constitute the



FINDING A PLACE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES IN AMERICAN MUSICOLOGY 75 exotica and curiosa sections of rare book catalogs. He smiles again, but is somewhat disquieted also, to find the dissertations on American studies listed not under traditional style periods, but within the category "ethnomusicological and national subjects" in Miss Hewitt's important bibliography in this JOURNAL. Perhaps our colleagues the ethnomusicologists, who are the true students of exotic, popular, and folk musics, are likewise amused to find historical musicologists and their historical studies de- tached from their proper bonds with historical musicology and turned over to the domain of ethnomusicology.

So if even the American Musicological Society is uncertain about the classification of American studies, it is hardly alone in the general ignorance and displacement of Americana. Until substantially more research is done, and done by first-rate scholars, any further generalized appraisals and general histories of American music cannot be considered truly valid, and can only amount to what Gilbert Chase has referred to (in a somewhat different context) as a "prenatal post-mortem."

American Music or Music in America? One of the initial stumbling blocks encountered in American studies

is the popular notion that American music cannot be American, unlike German or English music which can be German or English, without com- positional elements which can be shown to possess nationalistic or folk- loristic characteristics. This is a fallacy of course, for we as musicologists do not any longer evaluate European music by its ethnic purity. Instead we take scholarly delight in isolating the stylistic threads of various ethnic streams which have been amalgamated into a general style of a period in any given school, or country, or composer. Then we make our qualitative judgments on the basis of how well the schools, or countries, or composers have fused these threads with their own abstract styles, forms, or means of expression.

We recognize, above all, that young cultures--musical, literary, artistic, or whatever--begin as derivatives of parent cultures and develop in a roughly parallel fashion, though at a slower tempo, until such time as subtle stylistic variations appear to distinguish the offspring from the par- ents. Even when the parental influence is consciously rejected, it continues to be evident in fact to a greater or lesser degree in the young generation. Hence, the inevitable international quality of a common fundamental musical style. Thus Purcell, for example, in the late i7th century, was linked to Italy, to France, as well as to England; and Peter, in the late i8th century, was tied to Italy, to Germany, to Austria, as well as to the United States.' This is not as obviously self-evident as it might seem, or else we

1 So it seems to be considered remarkable that Purcell assimilated the styles of Corelli, Lully, and the English madrigalists and became the greatest English composer; while Peter, who did the same thing with the styles of Boccherini, Haydn,




would recognize our double standard in appraising the merits of this nor- mal metamorphosis as superior for European cultures, and inferior for the American. The notion is widespread that an I8th- or 19th-century composer, if he is to be acknowledged as an American composer, must sound like no other composer anywhere. Any scholar can easily expose the ab- surdity in this notion, and in the double standard of evaluation, by isolating the component styles of nearly every composer, school, or country in the entire history of western music. The nationalist fallacy has been rampant for so long that it is very much a part of the American sub- conscious, and it deserves to be buried without further delay.

Likewise, musicologists should either clarify or discard the self-conscious distinction between American music and music in America which has abetted the nationalist fallacy for at least a century. Presumably, the distinction is between the indigenously inspired, or completely novel, nonderivative styles and forms used by nationalistic Americans, who composed what we suppose would be strictly American music-and the transplanted styles and forms, as well as traditions, of foreign cultures, which would represent music in America. If hairs must be split in assessing the American musical heritage, then, obviously, the latter category would outrank the former quantitively; but, we may ask, is not the distinction academic and overemphasized in view of the comparable situations else- where? Fortunately, so far as I know, musicologists do not belabor this distinction in European studies; but American studies are always somewhat apologetic in this respect. The historical surveys by Frederic Louis Ritter (1883), John Tasker Howard (1946), Gilbert Chase (0955), and J. T. Howard-George Kent Bellows (i957), which have been most in- fluential, and the new anthology by W. Thomas Marrocco and Harold Gleason (1964) all reveal the authors' discomfort in an alliance of Amer- ican and European culture.

As far as I am concerned, it is relatively unimportant whether our history is of American music, America's music, or music in America, so long as it is recognized that the history is of the music composed in North America by natives or naturalized Americans, as well as of the musicians of all types and origins, and the institutions that have made a significant contribution to the American musical heritage, whether contemporane- ously or posthumously. And just as the history of German or English music rightly includes music composed outside the national borders and traditions, which has been brought in and subsequently absorbed, so must the history of American music include all things which poured into the American melting pot, or evolved from it.

A distinction which is not so easily reconcilable is that of the conflict-

and C. P. E. Bach, because he resorted to such a thing, is considered as an eclectic Euro-American, and therefore cannot rate any higher than as one of the outstanding composers in Colonial America.



FINDING A PLACE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES IN AMERICAN MUSICOLOGY 77

ing sets of values which seem to create a wide gulf between the American and European musical heritages. Traditionally, the histories of European music, whether by European or American scholars, have been concerned with the music of the cultivated minority, the cultured elite. Perhaps this is as it should be, and musicology should concern itself exclusively with fine-art music, though one wonders if musicology is not standing virtually alone among the humanistic disciplines in ignoring the largest portion of our total musical culture. On the other hand, American music histories, i.e., histories of American music, have tended in recent years to be concerned primarily with popular music, even going so far as to delve into the folk and primitive traditions, in lieu of what is supposed to be a neg- ligible fine-art tradition. This trend, stemming probably from the notable influence of Charles Seeger, has emphasized the social values and functions of music, rather than the traditional historical, theoretical, and aesthetic values.

Gilbert Chase speaks as an ethnomusicologist when he explains that, to him, the most important music is that which is least like the European, and is most clearly the vital culture of the greatest percentage of the

population.2 Irving Lowens understands the history of American music quite dif-

ferently and comes closest, perhaps, to suggesting the way to untangle the complexity of its history. He analyses the values essentially as a di-

chotomy between the fine-art and popular traditions which constitute a

compound phenomenon. As he says: In effect, fine-art music and popular music are the two main elements in

the American musical compound, perceptible separately without difficulty, but in combination something else again. As with American democracy, it is the way in which the elements interfuse, interconnect, and interact in a particular environment that constitutes the individuality of the compound. Failure to grasp the mechanics of this process has led some to seize upon the "American vernacular" as the only true American music; it has led others to dismiss our popular music, claiming the laurel for fine-art music alone, both interpreta- tions are equally fallacious. . . . American democracy and American music are both compound concepts, each composed of equalitarian and libertarian impulses; our music of popular and fine-art components. The relative propor- tion of each element in each compound is continually changing. In the social sphere, equalitarianism or libertarianism may be predominant; in the artistic sphere, popular or fine-art music may be pre-eminent.3

2c ".. . I do not think I am prejudiced in favor of our folk-popular music simply because I believe it has been the most important phase of America's music. And if you ask me what I do mean by 'important,' I will answer, in this case, 'different from European music.' And if we are now beginning to sense that difference in American art-music also, that is because of the subtle but pervasive influence of our folk-popular idioms; the American musical vernacular has been on the march through all these generations, and even our most academic composers are catching up with it, or being caught up by it." Gilbert Chase, America's Music (New York, 1955), p. xviii.

s Irving Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York, 1964), p. 267.




Current Status of American Studies

Of infinitely greater concern to the American scholar than the psy- chological barriers is the natural barrier created by the relatively primitive state of our knowledge of Americana. The bulk of the corpus of knowl-

edge has evolved from a minute accumulation of original sources assessed by quasi-historians and journalists of another generation not blessed with modern standards of musical historiography. Irrespective of the impression conveyed by the standard surveys of Americana suggesting that little more is left to be done in primary research, the actual situation is quite another matter. Oscar G. Sonneck's excellent pioneering research, during the early part of the century, has not been equalled in breadth and depth of scholarship, despite his eloquent pleas and challenges for others to fol- low in his path. Only during the past decade and a half has his inspiration begun to bear fruit. Much distinguished research has been undertaken on various areas and topics, including the singing-school movement and its repertoire, the Moravian heritage, early music publishing, music bibliography, early performances, various regional histories, genre and repertoire studies, and several important composers. Editors have been successful in getting their editions of music by the i8th-century New England and Moravian schools published with fine publishers.

And yet, though the scholarship has been marked by its breadth and depth in at least three crucial fields-the Anglo-Celtic and German-Amer- ican traditions, and the bibliography of secular music and its publishers- only the preliminary research has been accomplished in advancing the frontiers marked off by Sonneck. At a time when musicologists have virtually exhausted the fertility of once luxuriant fields, one would expect the almost virginal fields of Americana to offer great promise for the scholar. They do indeed. The time is propitious as never before for actual discovery and challenging research. One needs but a glance in any book- shop of consequence to recognize that a hallmark of our time is the gen- uine interest in American arts and crafts, and the concomitant prolifera- tion of studies of them which appear regularly. Music is noticeably absent from the bookshelves and indeed from the sum total of knowledge of American culture.

The musicologist can learn much from his colleagues in the antiques field, and to be successful as an Americanist must collaborate with them and adopt many of their procedures. After all, the only essential difference between a research musicologist and an antiques scholar is the artistic medium; the objectives are the same.

The fundamental needs in American music studies are precisely the same as those in any other branch of musical scholarship in its early stages. The first and most urgent task is that of finding and collecting the repertoire, i.e., the musical and historical documents which presumably have



FINDING A PLACE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES IN AMERICAN MUSICOLOGY 79 existed and hopefully have not been totally discarded through ignorance and the mobility of modern society. The second and third tasks are mu- tually important: bibliographic studies and scholarly editions of the music, which must be done by fully competent scholars, and for which means for publication must be secured. In due course biographies, period and regional histories, handbooks and dictionaries, genre studies, and detailed studies in style will be possible and will evolve naturally from the accumu- lated repertoire.

A general expository paper such as this is not the place to enumerate the specific topics and areas which are major lacunae in American studies, but a few general suggestions are in order. We need histories of musical traditions in each of the United States and the major (and formerly major) municipalities, of the many ethnic groups which settled in them, of the churches, the orchestras and other ensembles of the 19th century; bibliographies of i8th and (especially) 19th-century manuscripts and editions of works composed in America; descriptive catalogs of instruments and contemporary libraries of music; advanced studies in styles and style origins, and advanced studies in comparative performance practices. But above all we need editions of the music, whether prepared as critical editions or as high-quality critico-practical compromises. Several years ago (1960) a list was prepared to enumerate the Colonial and Early Amer- ican works in print; the total of works, which are chiefly vocal/choral, barely reached two hundred, and some of the publishers responsible vig- orously denied any knowledge of their publications.4 Obviously, one cannot know a repertoire of two hundred and fifty years from such a small selection of examples, few of which can be considered at all as being available in anything approaching a scholarly edition. Only a small frac- tion of these works, by the way, were available when most of the histories of American music were written!

II

TowARD FULL MUSICOLOGICAL STATUS FOR AMERICAN STUDIES

Reconcilation With American and European Musicology The history of American music is perhaps the most conspicuous lacuna

in European-American musicology, and thus offers the greatest promise for the American musicologist in the decades ahead to make a significant contribution to learning. Finding a place for American studies in American musicology therefore should be a simple matter, but actually it is not simple in the least, as those who are most experienced in the field will reluctantly concede. Many factors compound the difficulty: the various

4 Donald M. McCorkle, "Early American Choral and Instrumental Music Available in Modern Editions (I96o)," privately printed for distribution.




patronizing attitudes and deeply ingrained fallacies, which we have already considered; the forbidding dearth of significant source materials; and the one factor which may be the key to the ultimate solution, namely, the achievement of full musicological status for American studies, and the granting of such appropriate status by the musicology profession and its learned society, and by institutions of higher learning. To effect this achievement of recognition we must proceed in search of a reconciliation with American and European musicology. I suggest that there are three essential requirements to be considered.

The first requirement is the recognition of the validity of American studies as a branch of musical scholarship. In this regard, there can be little question that the substantial research conducted thus far by Ameri- can scholars has utilized the tools of traditional musical historiography and has demonstrated that the Adlerian goals are applicable, with modifi- cations, to the American musical history. We should not condone any double standard in the quality of research techniques needed by the Amer- icana specialist and the European specialist.

The second requirement is a rapprochement between the complemen- tary goals of historical musicology and ethnomusicology, or, in other words, the acceptance by historical musicologists of a more comprehensive definition of their discipline to consider the social function of music along with the aural phenomenon. Mantle Hood has already admonished us to beware lest "The musicologist may become so occupied with his concern for musical analysis and the reconstruction of musical theory that he pays too little attention to the function of music within its society."6 Historical musicology should continue to be concerned primarily with the fine-art tradition, but hopefully will become flexible enough to admit scholarly concern for the popular tradition as well; ethnomusicology should continue to be concerned in American studies with the tribal and folk traditions primarily. Together, in the distant future, historical musicology and ethnomusicology can synthesize their data under the collec- tive rubric of musicology and write the conclusive history of American music.

The third requirement is a recognition of the differences between European and American studies, as well as the common qualities. Among the essential considerations is that of qualitative evaluation. European- American musicology has by now discarded the "historical progress" and "genius" theories in favor of historical sequence, or mainstreams, as the principal criterion of evaluation. Thus, the history of western music is no longer seen in the light of a crescendo of improvement from primitive to fulfillment, but rather of periods and stylistic streams of greater or lesser importance. American music history, conversely, is still seen in the

5 Mantle Hood, "Music, The Unknown," in Musicology (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall [The Princeton Studies], x963), p. z62.



FINDING A PLACE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES IN AMERICAN MUSICOLOGY I

eyes of the i9th-century historian, in which the qualitative crescendo ascends to the present and the past is merely preparation.6 A historio- graphic reconciliation is therefore very much in order, and it can be made to relate American music history to traditional periodization and to the social and functional values which often seem to outweigh the aesthetic in American music. In other words, there are periods in American fine- art music analogous to those in European fine-art music, if considerably less well defined, as there are also functional values which may or may not be analogous to European fine-art and popular music.

American Studies in the Academic Curriculum The extent of academic involvement currently with American studies

is limited generally to a one- or (rarely) two-semester course in the history of American music, from the Puritans to the present. A check of college-university catalogs in I959-6o by Irving Lowens, for the M.L.A. project, revealed that 54 institutions listed such a course, while 342 institutions did not. Although this census was astonishing in that the course appeared to be more widely taught than had been suspected, it is anyone's guess how the course was taught without music and recordings. The recent publication of the first comprehensive, though not entirely satis- factory, anthology by W. Thomas Marrocco and Harold Gleason, Music in America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), will make it possible for the first time for these classes to have somewhat representative compositions for study.

The most active American specialists have been besieged in recent years with inquiries from undergraduate and graduate students expressing interest in American studies, so we may conclude that the climate is right, if the facilities are wrong, for developing the American music studies program in institutions of higher learning. Professors of musicology seem to view with increasing favor the greater involvement of their depart- ments in Americana research, and many of these same professors are quietly pursuing research projects of their own in this still peripheral branch of musicology.

American universities are in the most advantageous position to carry out the rediscovery of Americana, because of their geographic distribution in the United States and their commitment to research. If the various

6 In 1915 Arthur Farwell said that "prophecy, not history, is the most important concern of music in America" (Music in America, 1915), and Gilbert Chase, forty years later, could still believe it, apparently, as he said: "We have, to be sure, every reason to believe that our future will outweigh our past. By and large, our past has been a formative period: this is indicated by the subtitles given, respectively, to Parts I and II of this book [America's Music]: Preparation and Expansion. The con- fidence--certainly not complacence-displayed in the heading of Part III, Fulfill- ment, is based mainly on the achievements of the last two or three decades; but it also leans somewhat on prophecy, venturing to predict and anticipate what the second half of the twentieth century will bring." (America's Music, p. xv).




state or private universities were to conduct intensive campaigns within their respective regions to collect from attics and other repositories the music of their regions, we may predict that the results would be astonishing. An enormous accumulation of manuscripts and editions would pile up from coast to coast, and many institutions would find themselves allied with the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, American Antiquarian Society, Newberry Library, The Moravian Music Founda- tion, et al., as repositories of musical Americana. Not all of the spoils would be of great intrinsic musical value, to be sure, but some missing and unknown masterpieces would doubtless appear. In any case, the resources for musical research in American music and musical institutions would be enriched, and Professor Seeger's dictum that "there is little or no outstanding individuality but only a vast anonymity [in American music to 900oo]"' could be put to the test. Most important, perhaps, would be the experience in applied bibliography for the graduate student, who only rarely has opportunity to work with raw source materials.

Apart from large-scale projects such as "Operation Attics," the place of American studies in the academic curriculum will probably remain minimal and confined to individual students for many years, or at least until enough spadework has been done by pioneering scholars, and the raw materials for research have been published. To do the difficult spadework, the best of our graduate students in musicology should be en- couraged to pick up the challenge, for the abundance of distortions, fallacies, myths, and relative absence of guiding precedents which con- front the Americanist are major obstacles in his path. No permanent value will be gained by the growing tendency of graduate advisors to recommend American studies to mediocre students; as a matter of fact, a great deal of irreparable damage can be done by these students who tackle projects beyond their capabilities, and in one way or another spoil the sources for subsequent qualified scholars.

The American specialist, ideally, should be of the same intellectual competence as his fellows specializing in traditional studies in European music. The Americanist now needs what most of his predecessors have lacked, namely, a complete musicological background in historical method and perspective, together with a superior knowledge of European and American cultural history. A deciding factor in his ultimate success will be his degree of practical ingenuity and flexibility in dealing with new and different concepts, and in gathering extra-library sources. The Ameri- canist should be well trained and have ability in bibliography, archeology, paleography, sociology, analytical theory, musical instruments, languages, and comparative theology, or else he will fall far short of the requisites needed for foundational research.

SCharles Seeger, "The Cultivation of Various European Traditions in the Americas," in Report of the Eighth Congress of the International Musicological So- ciety. (New York, 196x), Vol. I, p. 366.



FINDING A PLACE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES IN AMERICAN MUSICOLOGY 83

I cannot agree with Charles Seeger and Gilbert Chase that the Amer- ican scholar needs to be an ethnomusicologist, rather than a historical musicologist, to be a specialist in American fine-art, or even popular, music.8 Admirable as the refreshing non-parochialism of the ethnomusicologist is, and granting that the day may came when all musicological studies, Occidental and Oriental, may be ethnomusicological-or an ethno-historico musicological synthesis-it remains to be established that historical musicology does not provide the tools and techniques needed for dealing with American fine-art music. I, for one, am not ready to concede that American music is more worthy of the ethnomusicological discipline, and will not so concede until much more of substance is known of American fine-art and popular music, and the historical musicologist has exhausted his tools and techniques in its quest.

The Role of the American Musicological Society No doubt a learned society in the humanities serves two essential

functions: that of a forum in which kindred spirits unite to exchange knowledge and ideas having significance for the advancement of learning, and that of exerting leadership within the confraternity, through its status as the highest organization within the profession. The American Musicological Society serves these two functions, and it has served them with increasing distinction through the years. Certainly, its membership values the international breadth of its concerns, its lack of provincialism in stimulating research in all periods and nations, to the end that scholarship shall be objective and free from national bias. And yet one wonders if we as a society do not have a responsibility to give more leadership for the cause of American studies, without in any sense emphasizing Amer-

8 Cf. Charles Seeger, op. cit., p. 366: "Whereas in the folk and popular idioms of Europe and in all idioms in the Americas, there is little or no outstanding individuality but only a vast anonymity, practically all values must be considered social, even though admittedly created primarily by individuals in infinitely small con- tributions at times and places unknown. It will be readily understood, therefore, that the character of music activity in the Americas up to 1900oo compels an approach in many ways different from that conventionally in use by historicomusicology. It must perforce be almost exclusively ethnomusicological, quantitative rather than qualitative, more concerned with tradition than with only the outstanding carriers of tradition, and with all four idioms equally under the increasing hegemony of tradition, that did not grow to maturity upon the soil of the continent but were brought to it full- fledged throughout a period of four centuries and cultivated, often as not, in the frame of their continued and brilliant functioning in the distant, superior culture of Europe."

Gilbert Chase, ibid., Vol. II, p. 152: "i) Any study of musical culture in the Americas can be fruitful only to the extent that it takes into account the presence and vitality of all three of the main music traditions of the New World: the Amerin- dian, the African, and the European; 2) academic musicology, bound to the docu- ment and the individual, does not provide the tools and techniques needed for dealing with the 'vast anonymity' of American music; 3) the approach of ethnomusicology should be developed in the context of the musical history of the New World, and thereafter should be extended to include 'the ethnomusicology of European music' [Seeger]."




ican studies in our purpose, by virtue of our designation as the American Musicological Society.

We have come far toward fulfilling Professor Kinkeldey's desire ex- pressed to me a decade ago, when he said he wished that each meeting of the Society could have one good paper on an American subject. We have not achieved this goal, but we have seen a substantial increase in the number of superior papers read and published. The American specialists abhor chauvinism and inverse chauvinism equally; they wish only to have American studies accorded the dignity of full musicological status, already accorded by the Society to all other studies in historical musicology.

We have smiled long enough over the inclusion of American fine-art and popular music within exotica and curiosa; the repertoire and the historical, descriptive, critical, and comparative methods needed to study it are well within the realm of musicologica. The European-oriented musicolgist may well be at a loss for some time to come to contend with, and find hierarchical concepts in, what seems at a superficial glance to be a complex but ungratifying heritage. But I am convinced that we have been much too concerned with making ultimate appraisals on the basis of an infinitesimal amount of documentation. The specious pre- judgment of unknown American music history has had a pernicious effect on the recovery of a large and perhaps intrinsically important heritage. It is time to search instead for the heritage and to apply the attributes of humanistic scholarship to it.

University of Maryland



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Finding a Place for American Studies in American Musicology