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The Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology

On the Construction, Function, and Discursive Career of a Narrative in the Historiography of Austrian Musicology

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  • cris.virtual.department
    Music and Minorities Research Center
  • cris.virtual.orcid
  • dc.contributor.author
    Malik Sharif
  • dc.date.accessioned
    2025-09-22T12:43:10Z
  • dc.date.available
    2025-09-22T12:43:10Z
  • dc.date.issued
    2024-11-01
  • dc.date.publishedOnline
    2024
  • dc.description.abstract
    The concept of the Vienna School of Comparative Musicology, later renamed as Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology, plays an important role in received historical accounts of musicology in twentieth-century Austria (used as shorthand for the various political entities to which the territory of post-World War II Austria belonged). The concept was developed in the second half of the twentieth century, most notably by Walter Graf (1903–1982) and Franz Födermayr (1933–2020), both former professors of comparative(-systematic) musicology at the University of Vienna. Proponents of this concept point to Richard Wallaschek (1860–1917) and especially Robert Lach (1874–1958) as the founders of the school and emphasize the synthetic character of the Vienna School, combining approaches from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology can be analyzed as a historiographical narrative, as a coherent story of how a particular branch of Austrian musicology developed over time, mostly as a kind of “Whig history.” This paper examines key aspects of this narrative: Who contributed to its construction? How did the narrative evolve over time? Which scholars, institutions, and types of research are part of the narrative? Which are excluded or appear only as supporting characters? How is this particular form of comparative-systematic musicology represented in relation to other forms and schools of (comparative) musicology? What discursive function(s) did this narrative serve? How was it received? And to what extent has it remained relevant in the present?
  • dc.description.provenance
    Submitted by Malik Sharif (sharif@mdw.ac.at) on 2025-09-22T12:43:10Z workflow start=Step: checkcorrectionstep - action:noUserSelectionAction No. of bitstreams: 0
    Made available in DSpace on 2025-09-22T12:43:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2024
  • dc.identifier.citation
    Sharif, M. (2024, October 27). The Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology: On the Construction, Function, and Discursive Career of a Narrative in the Historiography of Austrian Musicology. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/947wh
  • dc.identifier.doi
    10.31235/osf.io/947wh
  • dc.identifier.uri
    https://dspace.mdw.ac.at/handle/123456789/22775
  • dc.language.iso
    en
  • dc.rights.license
    CC-BY-NC-4.0
  • dc.subject
    comparative musicology
    comparative-systematic musicology
    Franz Födermayr
    history of musicology
    Richard Wallaschek
    Robert Lach
    Walter Graf
    Vienna School
  • dc.title
    The Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology
  • dc.title.subtitle
    On the Construction, Function, and Discursive Career of a Narrative in the Historiography of Austrian Musicology
  • dc.type
    text::preprint
  • dspace.entity.type
    Publication
  • mdwlis.numberOfPages
    19
  • mdwlis.publication.firstRelease
    false
  • mdwlis.publication.mdwAttribution
    yes
  • mdwlis.subject.oefosDeKunstzweig
    GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTEN - Kunstwissenschaften
  • mdwrepo.subject.percentage
    100
  • oairecerif.author.affiliation
    Music and Minorities Research Center