Rethinking Rationalisation: Evolutionism and Imperialism in Max Weber's Discourse on Music.

Ana Petrov

• Publisher: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783990122693
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Max Weber as a sociologist of music?Scrutinising an array of nineteenth-century discourses on the concept of 'development' in music, Ana Petrov focuses on Max Weber's theory of rationalisation in music, which led him to see 'rationalised' music as the most 'developed', the most 'complex' and the 'best' music that the whole of civilisation had ever achieved. Weber was convinced that his analysis could prove that the 'peak' of the rationalisation process was to be found in the 'great' masterpieces of German composers, starting with Johann Sebastian Bach and finishing with Richard Wagner.Petrov argues that Weber's allegedly 'neutral' concepts were far from 'innocent' and 'ideology-free', but rather outcomes of his social and intellectual background. She explores the implications of Weber's concept of rationalisation in music, discussing correlations between the theories of evolution and rationalisation and the paradigm of cultural imperialism, which can be recognised in Weber's promulgation of the superiority of Western music traditions.

ANNOTATIONS

1 Ana Petrov: “Koncept evolucije muzike u teorijama Herberta Spensera i Čarlsa Darvina” [The Concept of Music Evolution in Herbert Spencer’s and Charles Darwin’s Theories], Filozofija i društvo 23/3 (2012), pp. 253–273.

2 Ana Petrov: “Max Weber’s Theory of Music Development: Evolution and Rationalisation of Music”, in: Music and its Referential Systems, eds. Matjaž Barbo and Thomas Hochradner. Wien: Hollitzer Verlag, 2012, pp. 45–54.

3 Ana Petrov: “If it’s not on Paper, is it Music at All? The Paradigm on the Written Record in Nineteenth-Century Discourses on Music”, in: Music Identities on Paper and Screen, eds. Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman et al. Belgrade: Department of Musicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts, 2014, pp. 245–254.

4 Ana Petrov: “Are We Still Evolutionists? The Case of Reception of Max Weber’s Theory of Music Development”, in: Critical Music Historiography: Probing Canons, Ideologies and Institutions, eds. Vesa Kurkela and Markus Mantere. Ashgate, 2015, pp.197–209.

5 Lawrence A. Scaff: “Weber, Art and Social Theory”, in: Etica & Politica/Ethics & Politics 6/2 (2005), http://www.units.it/etica/2005_SCAFF.htm, accessed on May 25, 2013.

6 Christoph Braun: Max Webers “Musiksoziologie”. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1992.

7 Christoph Braun and Ludwig Finscher: Introduction to Weber, Max: Zur Musiksoziologie (Nachlaß 1921), Gesammtausgabe 14, eds. Christoph Braun and Ludwig Finscher. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2004, pp. 1–144.

8 Edith Weiller: Max Weber und die literarische Moderne: Ambivalente Begegnungen zweier Kulturen. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1994.

9 Marianne Weber: Max Weber. Ein Lebensbild. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1984, p. 45.

10 Max Weber: Jugendbriefe, ed. Marianne Weber. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1936, p. 25.

11 Joachim Radkau: Max Weber. A Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.

12 Lawrence A. Scaff: “Weber, Art and Social Theory”, 8–9. During the 1910s Weber regularly read about and commented on Italian renaissance art. In the letters from 1908 he mentioned, for example, the two-volume study on art in Florence by Paul Schubring. Max Weber: Briefe 1906–1908. Max Weber Gesamtausgabe 2/5, eds. M. Rainer Lepsius and Wolfgang J. Mommsen. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1990, pp. 532–563.

13 In 1898 Neumann sent to Weber a study on Jacob Burckhardt, and in the same year Weber read Neumann’s essay “Das Werk und der Künstler”, published in: Deutsche Rundschau. Scaff: “Weber, Art and Social Theory”, p. 21. It is indicative that Weber’s comments on Rembrandt were incorporated in the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in the section about the influences of puritan and ascetic ideals on the artist’s works. Neumann’s influence can also be seen in the concepts of the “spiritual” and “eternally great” in art. Scaff: “Weber, Art and Social Theory”, p. 10.

14 Max Weber: “Max Weber on Race and Society” in: Social Research 38 (1971), pp. 30–41.

15 Max Weber: “Max Weber on Church, Sect, and Mysticism”, in: Sociological Analysis 34/2 (1973), pp. 140–149.

16 Frustrated by internal disputes and inaction among the Society members, and faced with difficulties in funding the new organisation, the following year he resigned in from his executive position as treasurer and publications editor, and after the 1912 meeting in Berlin he withdrew entirely from any further participation in what he called a “salon des refuses”. Max Weber: Briefe 1909–1910. Max Weber Gesamtausgabe 2/6, eds. M. R. Lepsius and W. Mommsen, with B. Rudhard and M. Schoen. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1994, p. 656. Nevertheless, this first meeting was certainly a major episode in Weber’s career, and in many ways prefigures the diversity of topics and conflicting approaches to sociology that have often characterised the discipline ever since. Thomas M. Kemple: “Remarks on Technology and Culture”, in: Theory, Culture, Society 22/4 (2005), p. 23.

17 Werner Sombart: “Technik und Kultur”, in: Vehandlungen des ersten Deutschen Soziologentages. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1911, pp. 63–83.

18 Ibidem, pp. 67–69. Cf. Braun and Finscher: Introduction to Weber, Max: Zur Musiksoziologie, p. 83. Sombart’s contribution to the sociology of music was brief and underdeveloped, and therefore no definite conclusions could be made about the analysis of music in the lecture. His thesis was thus merely an impetus for the succeeding discussion.

19 Sombart: “Technik und Kultur”, p. 306. Cf. Kemple: “Remarks on Technology and Culture”, p. 24.

20 Weber: Briefe 1909–1910, p. 655.

21 Kemple: “Remarks on Technology and Culture”, p. 24.

22 With the publication of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1905, Weber had already adopted a critical stance regarding Sombart’s approach to cultural history in: Der moderne Kapitalismus [Modern Capitalism, 1902] and to economic history in: Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft im neunzehnten Jahrhundert [The German National Economy in the Nineteenth Century, 1903]. In the footnotes added to the 1920 edition he intensified his engagement with Sombart’s work with a detailed discussion of Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben [The Jews and Economic Life, 1911] and Der Bourgeois [The Burgeois, 1913], both of which Sombart had cast as a “refutation of historical materialism”. But Weber’s own interest in the cultural significance of modern capitalism also prompted him to concede that even “those who feel stimulated time and again by Sombart’s studies to oppose his views strongly, and directly to reject some of his theses, are obligated to clarify their reasons for doing so explicitly”. Kemple: “Remarks on Technology and Culture”, p. 24.

23 James Wierzbicki: “Max Weber and Musicology: Dancing on Shaky Foundations”, in: The Musical Quarterly 93/2 (2010), p. 271.

24 Paul Honigsheim noted that music was “essential for Weber’s life”, and that Weber complained about being sick in the last years of his life, and thus unable to dedicate himself to musical research. Paul Honigsheim: On Max Weber. New York: Free Press, 1968, pp. 83–84.

25 Braun and Finscher: Introduction to Max Weber: Zur Musiksoziologie, p. 23.

26 “Only we have harmonic music although other cultures possess a more refined sense of hearing and a more intensive culture of music” Weber: Briefe 1906–1908, p. 639.

27 Radkau: Max Weber, pp. 366–367.

28 Idem.

29 Following both the usage current at the time and Sombart’s definition of Technik in his lecture as the application of means for the attainment of ends, and specifically as a mode of processing material goods, this term and its adjectival form have for the most part been translated in the narrower and more modern sense as ‘technology’ and ‘technological’. Occasionally the broader meaning of ‘technique’ or ‘technical’ is also intended, which may include a customary rule of thumb, a traditional skill, tricks of the trade or purposive activity of any kind. Although the term Kultur may be translated in its fairly general sense as civilisation, as in Freud’s Das Unbehagen in der Kultur [Civilisation and its Discontents], both Sombart and Weber are at least implicitly drawing on the time-honoured contrast in German thought between ‘Zivilisation’ as a shorthand for (usually modern) economic, political and technological development and ‘Kultur’ (which may be objective or subjective, material or ideal) understood as a bourgeoi...