The History of Music in General

1. The Field of the History of Music. — The history of music is one department of the general history of human culture, more particularly of the history of the fine arts as aspecial embodiments and instruments of that culture. Its field is extensive, including all ascertainable facts regarding musical efforts wherever found, from the earliest times to the present, and ranging from the childish attempts of the savage to the monumental achievements of the greatest civilized artists. Its general object being to present these facts in their relations as features of a development that has been governed by large principles or tendencies, its main topics may be roughly tabulated as follows: —

1. Rudimentary experiments by savage or or uncivilized peoples in various parts of the world,
2. The organized and reasoned systems of the dominant races and countries of history,
3. The growth of a positive science of composition, with the theories and rules by which it has been governed,
4. The evolution of those specific types or forms of composition that have most affected prgress as a whole,
5. The origin and development of musical instruments and implements, including notations,
6. The advance of vocal and instrumental performance as an artistic specialty,
7. The lives, works and styles of composers and performers, especially those that are typical or influential,
8. The literary or scholarly treatment of musical subjects in books and periodicals,
9. The educational or commercial enterprises devoted to the maintenance or expansion of the art, including schools, societies, publishing houses, manufactories, etc.

While the ideal scope of the subject is thus wide, the field of a particular written history is at once less and more. It is less, because it is utterly impossible to compress into a single book all the facts. It is more, because the practical historian must be something of a critic as he works, selecting certain groups of facts for emphasis, classifying them under logical heads, and seeking every piont to keep what he conceives to be of special importance in the foreground.

2. Its Value. — Historical study has often been neglected by practical musicians because its literary or scholastic character seems so different from the artistic efforts upon which they are engaged. The history of music has been much overlooked by general historical students, partly because of a curious disdain of the fine arts as essential parts of culture, and partly because of the lack, until recently, of adequate handbooks. Now, however, since music-history is fully established as a branch of critical investigation, such neglect by musicians or others is inexcusable. Its obvious utilities lie in a general broadening of thought about musical art, in disclosing dominant lines of progress and effort, in exhibiting the personality and genius of creative artists and leaders, in providing rational grounds for appreciation, criticism and practical procedure, and in showing how musical life has been interlocked with literature and the other fine arts and with the advance of social life in general. For these reasons, music-history appeals not only to the musician, but to all cultivated persons.

3. Its Natural Divisions. — Music-history divides into two great sections, of which the first deals with a variety of peoples that lie outside the present circle of civilized nations and whose musical activity has not affected the latter, while the second concerns the greater historic peoples from classical times until the present. The first sectoin is much the less important, and can be treated only in a summary, descriptive way. The second presenta a clear continuity and an organic development. The natural subdivisions are as follow: —

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