Music in UK Higher Education 2: Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught Courses
Posted: June 3, 2023 Filed under: Academia, Culture, Higher Education, Music - General, Musical Education, Musicology | Tags: 1992 further and higher education act, conservatoires, ethnomusicology, hesa, master's degree loan scheme, music education, music higher education, music performance, music technology, musical theatre, musicology, popular music, post-1992 universities, postgraduate taught courses, private providers in music, russell group, Times Higher Education, ucas, undergraduate courses Leave a commentAs a follow-up to my previous post in this series, I now wanted to give details of the spread of undergraduate and postgraduate taught courses available in the UK Music Higher Education sector. These are figures for 2023-24 entry, as offered via the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) site, and collated earlier this calendar year. They can also be found in the handout for my lecture given at Oxford University in April, ‘Academic Music in the United Kingdom and the Dalliance with Practice’, the full text and slides of which (together with the handout) can be accessed here. Some may change for the upcoming cycle of admissions (for 2024-25 entry), but this gives a good indication of the current state of play.
What I am not at liberty to share here are the precise numbers enrolled on such courses, as this information comes from the Higher Education Standards Authority (HESA), for purely internal use by institutions. However, in my analysis at the end of this piece I will give some broad figures for which I previously obtained permission to use in an article for Times Higher Education. Suffice to say that numbers vary greatly – there are some with recent enrolments of fewer than 5 students, others in the 70s and 80s (three-figure sums on individual programmes are rare outside of the conservatoires, which collate students on many different instruments and voices on single programmes).
I am dividing up the sector as I have done elsewhere, into 1. Russell Group; 2. Mid-Ranking (a category which emerged after the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, and the founding of the Russell Group in 1994 (arguably in response to the new act), originally comprising 17 institutions, but whose membership has changed considerably in the interim period); 3. Post-1992; 4. Colleges of Higher Education and others; 5. Conservatoires; 6. Private Providers.
As in all of these posts, the information contained therein is derived principally from that in the public domain. Furthermore, there is of course the potential for human error in collating it, and I welcome any corrections. I hope through these posts simply to make valuable information about the sector readily accessible to all with an interest, so that wider analyses or judgements on it can be better informed.
1. Russell Group
University of Oxford – BA Music (option of foundation year)
MSt Music (Musicology); MSt Music (Performance); MSt Music (Composition); MPhil Music (Musicology); MPhil Music (Composition); MPhil Music (Performance); also 1+1 option to combine MSt with an MBA. MPhil courses are taught and apparently sometimes taken as autonomous degrees.
University of Cambridge – BA Music (option of foundation year).
MPhil (Music) (taught).
University of Birmingham – BMus Music; joint courses with Modern Languages or Mathematics.
MA Music: Musicology; MA Music: Instrumental/Vocal Composition; MA Music: Electroacoustic Composition/Sonic Art; MA Music: Mixed Composition; MA Music: Performance pathway; MA Music: Performance Practice pathway; MA Music: Global Popular Musics; MA Music: Open Pathway with Performance; MA Music: Open Pathway without Performance
University of Bristol – BA Music; joint courses with various languages; MArts Music with Innovation (4 years).
MA Music; MA Composition of Music for Film and Television.
Cardiff University – BMus Music (option of study abroad year); BA Music (option of study abroad year); joint courses with languages, Mathematics, English.
MA Music.
Durham University – BA (Hons) Music (option of foundation year); joint course with Philosophy.
MA Music; MA Music and Science; MA Musicology; MA Ethnomusicology; MA Composition; MA Performance.
University of Edinburgh – BMus (Hon) Music (4 years); BSc Acoustics and Music Technology (4 years); joint course with Mathematics.
MMus Musicology (FT and PT); MMus Composition (FT and PT); MMus Musical Instrument Research; MScR Music; MSc Acoustics and Music Technology (FT and PT); MSc Sound Design.
University of Glasgow – BMus Music; MA Music (4 years); BEng/MEng Electronics with Music (4 or 5 years); joint courses with Archaeology; Classics, Economics; History, Mathematics, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Business/Management, Comparative Literature, Computing Science, English, History of Art, Scottish Literature, Theatre Studies, Film/Television Studies, etc. (all generally 4 year MA courses); various languages (5 years).
MMus Musicology; MA Historically Informed Performance Practice; MSc Music Industries; MSc Sound Design & Audiovisual Practice. Formerly an MMus Composition and Creative Practice.
King’s College, University of London – BMus Music.
MMus Music.
University of Leeds – BA Music; BA Music with Enterprise; BSc Music, Multimedia and Electronics; BMus Music (Performance) (4 years); Marts BA Music and Music Psychology (4 years); joint courses with English and Mathematics.
MA Applied Psychology of Music; MA Critical and Applied Musicology; MMus Critical and Experimental Composition; MA Music and Management; MMus Performance; MA Music and Wellbeing.
University of Liverpool – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music and Popular Music; BA (Hons) Popular Music; BA (Hons) Music and Technology; BSc Mathematics and Music Technology; BA (Hons) Music and Game Design Studies; BA (Hons) Music Technology with Game Design Studies; BA (Hons) Popular Music and Game Design Studies; various joint courses.
MRes Music (formerly MMus Music); MMus Performance; MA Classical Music Industry (formerly MA Business of Classical Music); MA Music Industry Studies; MA Music and Audiovisual Media; MA The Beatles: Music Industry and Heritage.
University of Manchester – MusB Music; BA Film Studies and Music; BA Music and Drama; joint MusB/GRNCM course with Royal Northern College of Music (4 years).
Musm Music (Musicology) (FT and PT); Musm Music (Ethnomusicology) (FT and PT); Musm Composition (Instrumental and Vocal); Musm Composition (Electroacoustic Music & Interactive Media); Musm Performance Studies.
Newcastle University – BA (Hons) Music (option of year abroad); BA (Hons) Contemporary and Popular Music; BA (Hons) Folk and Traditional Music.
MMus Music; Mlitt Music; MA Creative Art Practice.
University of Nottingham – BA Music; BA Music and Music Technology; BA Music and Philosophy; option throughout of foundation year.
MRes Music.
Queen Mary, University of London – MSc Sound and Music Computing (FT and PT, with option of industry year).
Queen’s University Belfast – BMus Music; BA Music and Audio Production; BA Music and Sound Design; BSc Audio Engineering; BA Music Performance.
MRes Arts and Humanities.
University of Sheffield – BMus Music (option of foundation year); BMus Music (part-time) (6 years); joint courses with English, History, Philosophy, Languages, Korean Studies (latter two 4 years).
MA Musicology (FT and PT); MA Ethnomusicology (FT and PT); MA Composition; MA Music Performance Studies (FT and PT); MA Music Management (FT and PT); MA Psychology of Music (FT and PT); MA Music Psychology in Education; MA Transcultural and Traditional Music Studies (distance/online learning an option) (formerly formerly MA Traditional and World Music; before that MA in Traditional Music of the British Isles and MA World Music Studies); MA Music Psychology in Education, Performance and Wellbeing (Distance Learning)
University of Southampton – BA Music (option of year abroad); BSc Acoustics with Music; joint courses with English, French, German (all 4 years); BA (Hons) Music and Business Management (option of year abroad); BEng (Hon) Acoustical Engineering (3 years, option of foundation year and/or industrial placement year, can go up to 5 years); MEng (Hon) Acoustical Engineering (4 years, option of foundation year and/or industrial placement year, can go up to 6 years).
MMus Music (Musicology); MMus Music (Composition); MMus Music (Performance); MMus Music (Education); MA International Music Management.
University of York – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music and Sound Recording; BEng (Hons) Music Technology Systems (option of foundation year); MEng (Hons) Music Technology Systems (4 years, option of foundation year); BEng (Hons) Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems (option of foundation year); MEng (Hons) Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems (4 years, option of foundation year).
MA Musicology; MA Music: Composition; MA Music Performance: Historical Performance Practice; MA Music Performance: Piano Studies; MA Music Performance: Solo Voice Ensemble Singing; MA Music Performance: Vocal Studies: MA Music Production and Audio Cultures; MA Community Music; MA Music Education: Instrumental and Vocal Teaching; MA Music Education: Group Teaching and Leadership; MSc Audio and Music Technology (hosted by School of Physics, Engineering and Technology).
2. Mid-Ranking
University of Aberdeen – BMus (Hon) Music (4 years); BMus (Hon) Music Education (4 years); joint MA (Hons) courses with languages, History, Computing, Law, English.
MMus Music (FT or PT); MMus Vocal Music.
Bangor University – BA (Hons) Music; BMus (Hon) Music (option of foundation year for both); BA (Hons) Music with Theatre and Performance.
MA Music; MA Music with Education; MA Composition and Sonic Art; MA Performance.
Brunel University London – BA Music (option of placement year; option of part-time, 5-6 years); BA Music (Production) (option of placement year)
City, University of London – BMus (Hons) Music; BSc (Hons) Music, Sound and Technology; BA (Hons) Professional Dance and Musical Theatre; option of sandwich year or study abroad year.
MA Music by Research.
Goldsmiths College, University of London – BMus (Hon) Music (option of foundation year; option of part-time, 4-6 years); BMus Popular Music (option of part-time, up to 6 years) BMus(Hons)/BSc (Hons) Electronic Music, Computing and Technology (4 years; includes foundation or industry year); BA (Hons) Drama: Musical Theatre. Option of foundation year.
MA Music; MA Music (Musicology); MA Music (Contemporary Music Studies); MA Music (Ethnomusicology); MA Music (Popular Music Research); MA Music (Audiovisual Cultures); MA Arts Administration & Cultural Policy: Music Pathway; MA Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship: Music Pathway; MA Musical Theatre; MMus Composition; MMus Performance & Related Studies; MMus Popular Music; MMus Creative Practice; MMus Sonic Arts; MSc Music, Mind and Brain.
University of Hull – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music (Popular Music); BA (Hons) Music (Songwriting); BA (Hons) Music (Performance); BA (Hons) Music (Community & Education).
MMus Music (pathways in Musicology, Composition, Performance, Technology).
Keele University – BA (Hons) Music Production with a Foundation Year; BA (Hons) Music Production and Sound Design (sandwich); BA (Hons) Music Production and Sound Design with a Foundation Year (3.5 years); BA (Hons) Music Production and Psychology (sandwich); BA (Hons) Film Studies and Music Production (sandwich); BA (Hons) Media and Music Production (sandwich); BA (Hons) Business Management and Music Production (sandwich); BSc (Hons) Computer Science and Music Production (sandwich).
MRes Humanities; MA Creative Practice.
University of Kent – BA (Hons) Music, Performance and Production; BSc (Hons) Music Technology and Audio Production; BA (Hons) Music Business and Production
Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts (LIPA) – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music (Songwriting & Performance); BA (Hons) Management of Music, Entertainment, Theatre & Events; BA (Hons) Acting (Musical Theatre); BA (Hons) Acting (Musicianship); BA (Hons) Sound Technology.
MA Music Industry Professional Management.
Open University – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Arts and Humanities (Music) (3 to 6 years, distance).
MA Music.
University of Reading – BA (Hons) Primary Education and Music.
MA Education (Music Education).
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London – BA (Hons) Sound Design and Production
Royal Holloway, University of London –BMus (Hons) Music (option of foundation year); BA Music and Sound Design for Film, Television and Interactive Media (option of foundation year); joint courses with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Philosophy, Economics, Political Studies, Mathematics, Modern Languages, Theatre, Physics.
MMus Music (formerly called MMus Advanced Musical Studies).
University of Salford – BA (Hons) Music: Creative Music Technology (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music: Performance (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music: Popular Music and Recording (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Management and Creative Enterprise; BEng (Hons) Acoustical and Audio Engineering (option of foundation year); MEng (Hons) Acoustical and Audio Engineering (4 or 5 years); BEng (Hon) Sound Engineering and Production (option of professional experience year).
MA Music (formerly with named pathways); MA Contemporary Performance Practice; MA Socially Engaged Arts Practice; MSc Audio Production; MSc Acoustics (latter two hosted by School of Science, Engineering and the Environment).
SOAS, University of London – multiple joint BA (Hons) courses with music; no single music course.
MA Music (Ethnomusicology) (formerly MA Ethnomusicology; MA Music in Development).
University of St Andrews – MLitt Sacred Music.
University of Surrey – BMus (Hon) Music (option of sandwich); BMus (Hon) Creative Music Technology; BMus (Hons)/BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) (4 years; sandwich); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Actor Musician; BSc (Hons) Mathematics with Music.
MMus Music (formerly with various named pathways – Composition, Performance, Creative Practice); MA/MFA Musical Theatre.
University of Sussex – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music Technology.
MA Music and Sonic Media.
University of Ulster – BMus (Hon) Music; joint courses with Irish, Drama, Education, History; BSc (Hons) Creative Audio. MMus Creative Musicianship (FT or PT) (pathways in Performance Studies; Composition and Creative Audio; Music and Communities).
3. Post-1992 Institutions
Anglia Ruskin University – BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Performance; BA (Hons) Music Production; BSc (Hons) Audio & Music Technology; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music and Sound Production. All available as 3 or 4 years, with either foundation or placement year.
MA Music Therapy.
Bath Spa University – BA (Hons) Music (option of placement year); BA (Hons) Professional Music: Performance and Production; BA (Hons) Commercial Music (option of placement year); BA (Hons) Creative Music Technology (option of placement year); BA (Hons) Creative Music Technology (Games and Interactive Media) (option of placement year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Drama (Musical Theatre) (option of Professional Placement Year).
MA Commercial Music; MA Composition; MA Music Performance; MA Sound Design; MA Sound (Arts); MA Sound (Production); MMus Songwriting
University of Bedfordshire – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (optional qualifier of Film Acting); BA (Hons) Radio and Audio (options of foundation or placement year); BA (Hons) Music Technology Top-up (1 year)
Birmingham City University – BA (Hons) Music Business with Professional Placement Year; BSc (Hons) Music Technology with Professional Placement Year; BSc (Hons) Sound Engineering and Production (option of foundation or professional placement year). (Also courses offered by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire).
Bishop Grosseteste University – BA (Hons) Music and Musicianship.
University of Bolton – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (top-up) (1 year).
Bournemouth University – BA (Hons) Music and Sound Production (sandwich).
University of Brighton – BA (Hons) Digital Music and Sound Arts; BA (Hons) Music Business and Media.
MA Digital Music and Sound Arts.
Buckinghamshire New University – BA (Hons) Music Production and Performance (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Business (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production and Business (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Audio and Music Production (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Professional Dance and Musical Theatre (Dancebox Studios and Theatre Works); BA (Hons) Songwriting (option of foundation year); BSc (Hons) Sound Design (option of foundation year).
MA Music and Audio Production; MA Music Business.
Canterbury Christ Church University – BA (Hons) Music (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Commercial Music; BA (Hons) Creative Music Production and Technology (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
MMus Master of Music.
University of Central Lancashire – BA (Hons) Music Production (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production and Performance (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production and Performance; BSc (Hons) Live Audio Engineering and Music Production; BSc (Hons) Entrepreneurial Audio Production; BA (Hons) Music Theatre.
MA Music; MA Music Industry Management and Promotion.
University of Chester – BA (Hons) Music Production and Performance; BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance; BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Journalism (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance.
MA Popular Music.
University of Chichester – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music Performance; BA (Hons) Music Performance (Film Acting); BA (Hons) Commercial Music; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (many sub-options); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre and Arts Development; BMus (Hons) Performance (4 years); BMus (Hons) Instrumental Teaching (4 years); BMus (Hons) Jazz Performance (4 years); BMus (Hons) Vocal Performance (4 years); BA (Hons) Jazz and Cabaret Performance; BMus (Hons) Vocal Teaching (4 years); MusB (Hons) Orchestral Performance (4 years); Ba (Hons) Song Writing and Cabaret Performance; BA (Hons) Music with Jazz Studies; BA (Hons) Music with Teaching; BA (Hons) Music with Workshop Leadership; BA (Hons) Music with Arts Development; BA (Hons) Audio Production and Music Technologies.
MA Music Performance; MA Music Teaching; MA Composition for Film, TV and Games (formerly MA Music Industry Innovation and Enterprise; MA International Music Business); and through University of the Creative Arts – MA/MSc International Music Management; MMus Composition for Screen (formerly MMus Music Performance through LCCM).
University Centre Colchester at Colchester Institute – BA (Hons) Popular Music: Performance and Production; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music for Performance and Teaching.
Coventry University – BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance and Songwriting.
University of the Creative Arts (Kent/Surrey) – BA (Hons) Music & Sound Production (optional foundation year, taking to 4 years; optional professional practice year, taking to 5 years,4 without foundation year); BA/BSc (Hons) Music Business & Management (optional foundation year and professional practice year, as for Music & Sound Production); BMus (Hons) Composition for Screen (same options of foundation/professional practice year).
De Montfort University – BSc (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Technology; BA (Hons) Performance in Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Performance Level 6 Top-up (1 year).
MA Music, Technology and Innovation.
University of Derby – BA (Hons) Popular Music (optional foundation year); BSc (Hons) Music Production (optional foundation year); BSc (hons) Sound, Light and Live Event Engineering.
MA Music Production; MA Music Therapy; MSc Audio Engineering (hosted by College of Science and Engineering).
Edge Hill University – BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
MA Collaborative Performance Practice.
Edinburgh Napier University – BA (Hons) Music; BSc (Hons) Sound Design (4 years).
MA Music; MSc Sound Design.
Falmouth University – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Popular Music; BA (Hons) Creative Music Technology; BA (Hons) Creative Music Production (online, 2 years); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Performance); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Songwriting); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Electronic Music); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Production); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Business); BA (Hons) Career Musician (3 years; 2 years online option); BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering; BA (Hons) Electronic Music & Business (Online, 2 years); BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production (optional online, 2 years); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music & Sound for Film & TV; BA (Hons) Music Business; BSc (Hons) Live Sound; BA (Hons) Songwriting & Music Performance (optional online, 2 years) BA (Hons) Sound Design (3 or 4 year options); BA (Hons) Game Development: Audio (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering (Level 6 Top-up) (1 year); BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production (Level 6 Top-Up) (1 year).
MA Music Business.
University of Gloucestershire – BA (Hons) Popular Music; BA (Hons) Sound and Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Placement (optional placement year).
MSc Sound and Music Production; MA by Research Music and Sound.
Glyndŵr University, Wrexham – BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Technology (optional foundation year); BSc (Hons) Professional Sound and Video
University of Greenwich – BA (Hons) Professional Dance and Musical Theatre.
University Centre Grimsby – BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance.
University of Hertfordshire – BA/BSc Music Production; BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology; BSc (Hons) Music Composition and Technology for Film and Games (sandwich); BSc (Hons) Songwriting & Music Production; BSc (Hons) Audio Recording & Production; BA/BSc Live Sound and Lighting Technology (sandwich).
MA Creative Music Production; MSc Music and Sound for Film and Games; MSc Audio Engineering.
University of the Highlands and Islands – BA (Hons) Applied Music (4 years); BA (Hons) Popular Music (4 years); BA (Hons) Music Business (4 years); BA (Hons) Gaelic and Traditional Music (4 years); BSc (Hons) Audio Engineering (4 years).
MMus Music; MA Music and the Environment.
University of Huddersfield – BMus (Hon) Music (sandwich); BMus (Hon) Music Technology and Composition: BMus (Hon) Music Performance (sandwich); BMus (Hons) Popular Music; BSc (Hons) Sound Engineering and Music Production (sandwich); BA (Hons) Creative Music Production; BSc (Hons) Sound Engineering and Audio Technology (sandwich); BA (Hons) Music and Sound for Screen; BA (Hons) Music Journalism.
MMus Musicology; MMus Music Performance; MMus Popular Music Practice; MA Creative Music Production; MSc Music Technology and Sound Production.
Kingston University – BA (Hons) Music Technology.
MA Music; MA Music Education; MMus Music Performance; MMus Composing for Film and Television.
Leeds Arts University – BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance.
Leeds Beckett University – BSc (Hons) Music Technology; BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Performance and Production; BA (Hons) Music Industries Management; BSc (Hons) Audio Engineering.
MA Popular Music & Culture; MA Music Production; MA Music for the Moving Image; MA Sonic Arts; MA Sound Design; MSc Sound & Music for Interactive Games; MSc Audio & Acoustics.
University of Lincoln – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Sound and Music Production.
MRes Performing Arts (Drama, Dance, Music).
Liverpool Hope University – BA (Hons) Music (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production and Musical Theatre (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music and Music Production (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Dance and Musical Theatre (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Dance and Music; numerous joint courses with Music Production or Musical Theatre.
MA Contemporary Performance.
Liverpool John Moores University – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Practice; BSc (Hons) Audio and Music Production (sandwich).
MA Musical Theatre; MA Audio and Video Forensics.
University of East London – BA (Hons) Music Performance and Production (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Journalism (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Technology and Production (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Sound and Music for Theatre (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Sound and Music for Media (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Sound and Music for Games (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
MA/MFA Sound and Music for Games; MA/MFA Sound and Music for Media; MA/MFA Sound and Music for Performance; MA/MFA Sound and Music for Production; MA/MFA Sound and Music for Theatre; MA Contemporary Performance Practices.
University of West London* – BMus (Hon) Music Performance (optional foundation year); BMus Popular Music Performance (optional foundation year); BMus Composition (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Songwriting; BA (Hons) Music Technology (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production (optional foundation year); BSc (Hons) Sound Engineering (optional foundation year); BSc (Hons) Audio Software Engineering (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Recording, Mixing and Production (optional foundation year); BMus (Hons) Performance and Recording (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance; BA (Hons) Sound and Music for Gaming (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Popular Music and Worship; BA (Hons) Hip Hop Performance and Production (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Recording, Mixing and Production (option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Song Writing and Cabaret Performance; BA (Hons) Music Management; BMus (Hon) Performance and Music Management (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Technology (Top-Up) (1 year); BA (Hons) International Music Business – Top Up (1 year).
MA Advanced Music Technology; MA Music Industry Management and Artist Development; MA Music and Performing Arts Education; MA Record Production; MMus Performance (Classical, Jazz, Popular); MMus Composition; MMus Electronic Music Composition; MMus Composition for Film and Television.
London Metropolitan University – BSc Music Technology and Production (FT with sandwich, 4 years; or PT, 6 years); BA (Hons) Music Business (FT 3 years; or PT option, including foundation year – 4 years) (4 years).
London South Bank University – BA (Hons) Music and Sound Design.
University of the Arts London – BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Sound Arts.
MA Sound Arts.
Manchester Metropolitan University – BA (Hons) Music and Sound Design (optional foundation year).
UCEN Manchester – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music Production and Composition; BA (Hons) Vocal Studies and Performance.
Middlesex University – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music Business and Arts Management.
MA Music Business; MA Arts Management; MA Classical Music Business.
University of Northampton – BA (Hons) Popular Music (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production (top-up) (1 year); BA (Hons) Popular Music (top-up) (1 year).
Northumbria University – BA (Hons) Music (optional with foundation and sandwich year, 5 years).
MRes Arts.
Nottingham Trent University – BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Performance; BSc (Hons) Sound Engineering and Audio Production; BSc (Hons) Audio and Music Technology; BA (Hons) Music Business.
MA Music Business; MA Music Business (London); MSc Creative Technologies.
Oxford Brookes University – BA (Hons) Music.
MA Music.
University of Plymouth – BA (Hons) Music (sandwich); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (optional foundation); BSc (Hons) Audio and Music Technology.
MA Music; MA Music Production; ResM Computer Music.
Plymouth Marjon University (= University of St Mark & St John) – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music Business.
Arts University Plymouth – BA (Hons) Sound Arts.
University of Portsmouth – BSc (Hons) Music Technology (sandwich); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (sandwich); BA (Hons) Creative Music Technology (Top-Up) (1 year).
MA/MSc Creative Technologies.
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh – MSc Music Therapy.
Ravensbourne University London – BA (Hons) Music and Sound Design.
University of Roehampton – MA Music Therapy.
University Centre Rotherham – BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance and Production.
Solent University (Southampton) – BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance and Production; BMus (Hons)/BSc (Hons) Popular Music Performance (optional foundation year; multiple courses on different sites); BSc (Hons) Popular Music Production; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music Business; BA (Hons) Digital Music (optional foundation year).
Staffordshire University – BA (Hons) Music Production (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BSc (Hons) Sound Design (optional foundation year).
MA/MSc Modern Music Practices.
University of Sunderland – BA (Hons) Modern Music Industries; BA (Hons) Music (Top-up) (2 years).
Teesside University – BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Top-up) (1 year).
University of South Wales – BA (Hons) Popular and Commercial Music; BA (Hons) Music Producing; BA (Hons) Music Business.
University of Wales Trinity Saint David – BA Musical Theatre (2 years); BA Perfformio (Performance) (2 years); BMus Vocal Performance; BA Creative Music Technology; BA (Hons) Theatr Gerddorol (Musical Theatre) (2 years); BMus (Hons) Vocal Performance; BA Commercial Music Producer (Top Up).
MA Advanced Vocal Studies; MA Performance (Repetiteur and Accompaniment) (both at Wales Academy of Voice & Dramatic Arts); MA Sound (Swansea College of Art); MA Commercial Music Producer (including Online Blended option); MA Music Business (including Online Blended option) (latter two at Tileyard Education, London).
University of the West of England – BSc (Hons) Creative Music Technology (sandwich); BSc (Hons) Audio and Music Technology (sandwich).
MA Music Therapy.
University of the West of Scotland – BSc (Hons) Music Technology (4 years); BA (Hons) Commercial Music (4 years).
MA Music (Songwriting/Sound Production/Industries).
University of Westminster – BA (Hons) Music Production, Performance and Business (optional foundation year).
MA Audio Production (FT and PT); MA Music Business Management (FT and PT); MA Live Music Management (FT and PT); MRes Creative Practice (FT and PT).
University of Winchester – BA (Hons) Popular Music: Production and Performance; BA (Hons) Music Production, Performance and Business with Foundation; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
University of Wolverhampton – MA Creative Practice and Performance (Music); MA Musical Theater Performance; MSc Audio and Creative Technology (formerly had MA courses in Music and Music Technology).
University of Worcester – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
York St John University – BA (Hons) Music; BA (Hons) Music Production; BSc (Hons) Music Technology; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music Production & Music Business; BA (Hons) Music: Community Music.
MA Musical Composition; MA Music Production; MA Community Music; MA Musical Leadership.
University Centre at the Heart of Yorkshire Education Group – BA (Hons) Actor Musician.
4. Others – Colleges of Higher Education, etc.
Bedford College Group – BA (Hons) Music Technology (Top Up) (1 year).
Greater Brighton Metropolitan College – BA (Hons) Music Performance; BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music Business and Management.
Burnley College – BA (Hons) Music Production and Performance (optional foundation, but still 3 years).
University Centre Calderdale College –BA (Hons) Creative Arts with Music Production (Top-up) (1 year).
Cardiff and Vale College – BMus Music Performance and Recording (Top-up) (1 year); BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production (Top-up) (1 year).
dBs Institute of Sound & Digital Technologies – MA Electronic Music Production; MA Music Production & Sound Engineering; MA Innovation in Sound (all awarded by Falmouth University).
New College Durham – BA (Hons) Popular Music (Top-Up) (1 year).
Edinburgh College of Art – MPhil Art (has music element).
Glasgow School of Art – MDes Sound for the Moving Image.
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
Hereford College of Arts –BA (Hons) Popular Music (Top Up) (1 year).
Hull College – BA (Hons) Music (Popular Performance/Creative Music Production) Top-up (1 year); BA Performance (Musical Theatre) (Top-up) (1 year).
Lincoln College – BA (Hons) Musical Instrument Craft (various sub-options).
City of Liverpool College University Centre – BA (Hons) Performing Arts (Acting/Dance/Musical Theatre) (Top-Up) (1 year); BA (Hons) Music (Popular/Production) (Top-Up) (1 year).
Loughborough College – BA (Hons) Contemporary Music, Performance and Production.
Middlesbrough College – BSc (Hons) Sound and Music Technology.
Morley College – BA (Hons) Music (Performance or Production) (Top Up) (1 year).
National Film and Television School – MA Composing for Film and Television; MA Sound Design for Film and Television
Newcastle College University Centre – BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Top-up) (1 year).
City College Plymouth – BA (Hons) Music Practitioner (Top-Up).
Rose Bruford College – BA (Hons) Audio Production (Technology/Music/Sound Design); BA (Hons) Actor Musicianship.
MA/MFA Actor Musicianship.
Sheffield College – BA (Hons) Music Performance and Production (Top-up) (1 year).
ThinkSpace Education – MA Professional Media Composition; MA Orchestration for Film, Games & Television; MA Sound Design for Video Games; MA Composing for Video Games; MA International Music Business; MA Songwriting & Music Production; MFA Songwriting, Production and Music Business; MFA Media Composition & Orchestration; MFA Video Game Composition and Orchestration; MFA Video Game and Media Composition; MFA Video Game Music and Audio.
West Suffolk College – BA (Hons) Commercial Music Production (part-time, 6 years).
East Sussex College – BA (Hons) Music Production and Creative Recording (Top-up) (1 year).
5. Conservatoires
Only degree courses, and only in music, are listed here.
Royal College of Music (RCM) – BMus (Hon) Music (4 years).
MPerf Performance; MComp Composition; MMus Performance; MMus Composition; MSc Performance Science; Med Education.
Royal Academy of Music (RAM), University of London – BMus (Hon) Music (4 years); BMus (Hon) Composition (4 years); BMus (Hon) Jazz (4 years).
MA Performance or Composition; MA Musical Theatre; MMus Performance or Composition.
Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) – BMus (Hons) Music.
MA Music Therapy; MA Opera Making and Writing; MMus/MComp in Composition; MMus/Mperf in Performance (Artist/Orchestral Pathways).
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance – BMus (Hons) Music Performance (4 years; also optional foundation year); BMus (Hons) Music Performance Jazz Studies (4 years); BA (Hons) Music Performance and Industry; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance.
MA Music; MA Music Education and Performance; MMus Music.
Leeds Conservatoire – BA (Hons) Music (Classical) (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music (Classical with Jazz); BA (Hons) Music (Classical with Popular); BA (Hons) Music (Classical with Folk, Roots and Blues); BA (Hons) (Classical with Production); BA (Hons) Music (Jazz) (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music (Jazz with Classical); BA (Hons) Music (Jazz with Folk, Roots and Blues); BA (Hons) Music (Jazz with Popular); BA (Hons) Music (Jazz with Production); BA(Hons) Music (Popular Music) (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Music (Popular with Classical); BA (Hons) Music (Popular with Jazz); BA (Hons) Music (Popular with Folk, Roots and Blues); BA (Hons) Music (Popular with Production);BA (Hons) Music (Folk, Roots and Blues); BA (Hons) Music (Folk, Roots and Blues with Classical); BA (Hons) Music (Folk, Roots and Blues with Jazz); BA (Hons) Music (Folk, Roots and Blues with Popular); BA (Hons) Music (Folk, Roots and Blues with Production); BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music (Production with Classical); BA Music (Production with Folk, Roots and Blues); BA (Hons) Music (Production with Jazz); BA (Hons) Music (Production with Popular); BA (Hons) Music (Songwriting) (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music (Film Music) (optional foundation year); BA (Hons) Actor Musician; BA (Hons) Music (Business); BA (Hons) Music Production (Top-up) (1 year); BA (Hons) Popular Music (Top-up) (1 year).
MA Music; MA Musical Direction; MA Musical Theatre Company; MA Musical Theatre Creatives
Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) – BMus (Hons) Music; BMus (Hons) Popular Music.
MMus Music; MPerf Performance.
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) – BMus (Hons) Performance (4 years); BMus (Hons) Composition (4 years); BMus (Hons) Jazz (4 years); BMus (Hons) Music Technology (4 years).
MMus Choral Composition; MMus Composition; MMus Instrumental Performance; MMus Jazz; MA Musicology; MA/MFA Professional Voice Practice; MMus Orchestral Performance (Strings); MMus Vocal Performance; MMus Brass Band Conducting; MMus Orchestral Conducting; MMus Experimental Performance; MMus Music Technology.
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) – BMus (Hons) Performance (4 years); BMus (Hons) Composition (4 years); BMus (Hons) Joint Principal Study (4 years); BMus (Hons) Jazz (4 years); BMus (Hons) Traditional Music (4 years); BMus (Hons) Traditional Music – Piping (4 years); BA Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Contemporary Performance Practice (4 years); BEd (Hons) Music (4 years).
MA Psychology in the Arts (Music); MMus/MA Repetiteurship; MMus Keyboard; MMus/MA (no qualifier); MMus/MA Strings; MMUs Opera; MMus/MA Brass; MMus/MA Composition; MMus/MA Guitar and Harp; MMus/MA Piano for Dance; MMus/MA Jazz; MMus/MA Timpani and Percussion; MMus/MA Traditional Music; MMus/MA Piano Accompaniment; MMus/MA Chamber Music; MMus/MA Woodwind; MMus/MA Conducting; MMus/MA Vocal Performance; MMus Performance and Pedagogy; MA Musical Theatre – Performance; MA Musical Theatre – Musical Directing; MEd Learning and Teaching in the Arts.
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD) – BMus (Hons) Music (4 years); BMus (Hons) Jazz (4 years); BA (Hons) Musical Theatre.
MMus Music Performance; MMus Music Performance (Intensive); MMus Orchestral Performance; MMus Orchestral Performance (Intensive); MA Advanced Opera Performance; MMus Chamber Music Performance; MMus Multi-Instrument Woodwind Performance; MMus Collaborative Piano; MMus Orchestral Conducting; MMus Brass Band Conducting; MMus Choral Conducting; MA Repetiteur Studies; MMus Historical Performance; MA Opera 360: The Opera Industry (FT & PT); MA Opera Directing; MA Jazz; MMus Composition; MMus Composition (Intensive); MMus Composer-Performer; MMus Collaborative Creative Practice; MA Musical Theatre; MA Stage & Event Management; MA Arts Management (FT & PT).
6. Private Providers
Only those offering courses via UCAS for 2023-24 entry are listed here. Some others such as the dBS Institute are directly linked with other providers (in that case Falmouth), so are not listed here.
Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) (Guildford, also with site in London) – BA (Hons) Commercial Songwriting (2 or 3 years, including option of 3 years including foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Composition (2 or 3 years, including option of 3 years including foundation year); BA (Hons) Creative Musicianship ( – Guitar/Bass/Drums/Keys/Other Instruments) (3 years); BA (Hons) Creative Entrepreneurship – Composition/Performance/Songwriting (2 or 3 years); BA (Hons) Music Production (2 or 3 years); BA (Hons) Live Production & Technical Arts (2 or 3 years); BA (Hons) Management & Entrepreneurship (3 years); BA (Hons) Rap & MC (2 or 3 years); BA (Hons) Songwriting (3 years); BA (Hons) Game-Development: Art/Audio/Design/Programming (2 years); BA (Hons) Live Production & Technical Arts (2 years); MCCI Commercial Songwriting (3 years); MCCI Music Composition (3 years); MCCI Creative Entrepreneurship – Composition/Performance/Songwriting/Production (2 or 3 years); MCCI Music Production (3 years); MCCI Live Production & Technical Arts (3 years); MCCI Management and Entrepreneurship (3 years); MCCI Rap & MC (3 years). Degrees accredited by Guildford College, Middlesex University, University of Surrey.
MA/MSc Creative Industries Futures (via Middlesex University).
British and Irish Modern Music Institute (BIMM) University (multiple branches in London, Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, also in Dublin and Hamburg) – BA (Hons) Electronic Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Production & Music Business; BA (Hons) Sound Production; BMus (Hon) Popular Music Performance; BMus (Hon) Popular Music Performance & Songwriting; BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance and Music Business; BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance and Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Business; BA (Hons) Music Business & Event Management; BA (Hons) Music Marketing, Media and Communication; BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance & Event Management; BA (Hons) Musical Theatre and Dance; BMus (Hons) Songwriting; BA (Hons) Songwriting & Music Business; BA (Hons) Songwriting & Music Production. Degree-awarding powers since 2019; university status since 2022.
MA Popular Music Practice (available at seven locations, including London); MA Learning and Teaching in the Creative Industries (available only at Brighton and Bristol).
Futureworks, Manchester – BA (Hons) Music Production; BSc (Hons) Audio Engineering and Production. Appears to have own degree-awarding powers.
Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (London) – BMus (Hon) Popular Music Performance; BMus (Hon) Popular Music Performance (Bass/Guitar/Drums/Keys/Vocals); BA (Hons) Creative Musicianship; BA (Hons) Creative Musicianship (Bass/Guitar/Drums/Keys/Vocals/Other Instruments); BA (Hons) Songwriting; BA (Hons) Creative Music Production; BA (Hons) Music Production for Film, TV and Games; BA (Hons) Music Production and Entrepreneurship; BA (Hons) Audio Engineering and Production (3 years); BA (Hons) Digital Marketing (and Content Creation) (3 years); BA (Hons) Digital Marketing and Music Management; BA (Hons) Music Business and Entrepreneurship. Appears to have own degree-awarding powers.
MA Songwriting; MA Music Performance; MA Creative Music Production; MA Music Business; MMus Popular Music Performance.
Liverpool Media Academy (LMA) (also has branch in London) – BA (Hons) Musical Theatre; BA (Hons) Music Performance & Industry. Degrees accredited by Staffordshire and Northampton Universities.
London College of Creative Media (LCCM) – BA (Hons) Music Business Management; BMus (Hons) Contemporary Music Performance and Production – Bass, Drums, Guitar, Piano/Keys, Sax, Trumpet, Vocals, Production, Songwriting; BMus (Hons) Commercial Music Technology; BMus (Hons) Composition for Film, Games, and other Media. Degrees accredited by Open University and Falmouth University.
MMus Contemporary Music Production; MMus Contemporary Music Performance.
Point Blank Music School (London, also branches in Los Angeles, Ibiza, Mumbai, Hangzhou) – BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering (2 years or 3 years; or 3 or 4 with Foundation Year) (also option of 3 years online); BA (Hons) Music Industry Management (2 year, option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production and Sound Engineering (2 or 3 years, option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Production & DJ Performance (2 years or 3 years; or 3 or 4 with Foundation Year); BA (Hons) Music Production and Vocal Performance (2 or 3 years; option of foundation year); BA (Hons) Music Industry Management (2 or 3 years, option of foundation year). Degrees accredited by Middlesex University.
SAE Institute (international franchise, originally in Sydney, Australia, British branches in London, Liverpool, Glasgow) – BA/BSc (Hons) Audio Production (2 years). Degrees accredited by Hertfordshire University, formerly Middlesex University.
Waterbear College of Music, Brighton and Sheffield – BA (Hons) Professional Music (Performance); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Production); BA (Hons) Professional Music (Songwriting).
MA Music Performance, Production & Business; MA Music Industry Enterprise (in conjunction with Falmouth University).
Undergraduate courses
There are five principal categories of undergraduate music degrees:
- Plain Music (generally with no other qualifier in the title).
- Music Technology/Production/etc: this term is an umbrella one for most courses focused upon technology.
- Musical Theatre.
- Popular/Commercial Music.
- Music Performance.
There are also other degrees in Music Journalism, Film/Media Music, Music and Gaming and Music Business/Industry, but none of these has as many students across the sector as the above (though Music Business/Industry may be growing).
Russell Group institutions are overwhelmingly centred around plain ‘Music’ courses (offered at every institution), with just a few also offering Popular or Tech courses. Mid-ranking institutions, with the exception of Keele, Kent and SOAS, all offer plain ‘Music’ courses, but are divided between around half centred on these (Aberdeen; Bangor; Brunel; Royal Holloway; Ulster), and others offering music tech or (in three cases) popular music. The post-1992s, only 13 of which over plain ‘Music’ courses (Bath Spa; Canterbury Christ Church; Chichester; Edinburgh Napier; Falmouth; Huddersfield; Lincoln; Liverpool Hope; Middlesex; Northumbria; Oxford Brookes; Plymouth; York St John) are overwhelmingly focused on practice-based subjects, in particular music technology and musical theatre, but also music performance; the Colleges of HE and private providers are similar. The conservatoires are different types of institutions, much more strongly focused around performance.
As regards degree titles, traditionally (from the first major growth of the sector after 1945) there were two: the BMus (Bachelor of Music) and the BA (Bachelor of Arts) in Music. Overall, the BMus had a greater concentration on technical aspects of music, including composition in particular, while the BA placed greater emphasis on reading of literature, and in particular did not grant performance a central role (the role of performance in undergraduate degrees has long been complicated). However, the meanings of the titles morphed considerably in subsequent years, so that today it is often difficult to read much meaning into them except at those institutions which offer both, where the traditional type of divide tends still to apply. BSc degrees became available from the 1970s, usually involving some degree of technology, but were still relatively unusual as late as 1990. These grew considerably in number in the intervening period, though it is relatively rare for departments only to offer them. A small few music technology degrees stressing engineering are also called BEng.
On the basis of figures from 2020-21 (an unusual year, for sure, because of the COVID pandemic, but figures do not differ significantly from those in the few years leading up to it), the balance of students on these is as follows:
University Departments (not Conservatoires)
Music: 1381 (19.5%)
Tech: 2214 (31.2%)
Popular Music: 773 (10.9%)
Musical Theatre: 1558 (22%)
Performance: 453 (6.4%)
Other: 389 (5.4%)
Conservatoires
Music: 30 (1.6%)
Tech: 137 (7.4%)
Popular Music: 260 (14%)
Musical Theatre: 115 (6.2%)
Performance: 1000 (54%)
Other: 273 (14.7%)
All
Music: 1411 (15.8%)
Tech: 2351 (26.3%)
Popular Music: 1033 (11.6%)
Musical Theatre: 1673 (18.7%)
Performance: 1453 (16.3%)
Business/Management: 269 (3%)
Other: 393 (3%)
It is therefore clear that plain ‘Music’ courses are very far from dominating the sector. These, together with those Performance courses offered at conservatoires, are the only ones which would afford a central place for classical music, or music history, analysis, repertoire and in some cases the study of non-Western musics, though most also have significant modules in composition and performance, and also frequently popular music, music technology, music business are available as modular options (more on this in a future post on curricula). However, popular music courses gain significantly fewer students than plain ‘Music’ ones, though this should be offset by the fact that popular music is often a principal concern on music technology courses as well.
Postgraduate taught courses
I am not at present at liberty to share information on the breakdown of student numbers on these courses, so my analysis is of necessity briefer. But it can suffice to say that there has been a significant net increase in PGT students since the introduction of the 2016 Master’s Degree Loan Scheme, enabling PGT students to access student loans for the first time.
The types of courses frequently offered break down into a wider range of categories, as follows (these are not in order of student numbers but type):
(i) Music/Musicology, offered by almost all RG, most mid-ranking, 8 post-92s, 3 conservatoires.
(ii) Ethnomusicology, offered by 3 RGs, 2 mid-ranking.
(iii) Composition/Electroacoustic Composition/Sound Art, offered by 9 RGs, 5 mid-ranking, 6 post-92s, 1 College of HE, 8 conservatoires, and BIMM.
(iv) Performance, offered by 9 RGs, 7 mid-ranking, 10 post-92s, 8 conservatoires, 4 private providers.
(v) Music Technology/Production, offered by 2 RGs, 2 mid-ranking, 18 post-92s, 1 College of HE, 1 conservatoire, 4 private providers.
(vi) Sound/Sound Design, offered by 2 RGs, 5 post-92s, 1 College of HE.
(vii) Popular/Commercial Music, offered by 2 RGs, 1 mid-ranking, 4 post-92s, 2 conservatoires.
(viii) Music/Sound for Film/Video/Games, offered by 3 RGs, 1 mid-ranking, 7 post-92s, 3 Colleges of HE.
(ix) Musical Theatre, offered by 3 mid-ranking, 3 post-92s, 1 College of HE, 4 conservatoires.
(x) Music Industry/Business/Management, offered by 5 RGs, 2 mid-ranking, 10 post-92s, 1 College of HE, 1 conservatoire, 2 private providers.
(xi) Music Psychology, offered by 2 RGs, 1 mid-ranking, 1 conservatoire.
(xii) Music Therapy, offered by 5 post-92s, 1 conservatoire.
(xiii) Music Education, offered by 3 RGs, 2 mid-ranking, 3 post-92s, 3 conservatoires, and BIMM.
Other more occasional courses exist in Historically-Informed Performance/Performance Practice; Music and Science; Musical Instrument Research; Creative Practice (including Music): Arts/Arts and Humanities/Humanities (including Music); Sound and Music Computing/Computer Music; Audio Engineering; Contemporary Music Studies; Socially Engaged Arts Practice; Community Music; Acoustics; Sacred Music; Music and the Environment; Modern Music Practices; Opera Making and Writing; Creative Industries Futures.
The titles MA and MMus are very common for postgraduate taught degrees, though the content can be very heterogenous. By the 1970s the majority of universities offering UG courses also offered PGT ones, but by the 1980s study of advertising for such courses demonstrates how hard individual institutions worked to distinguish theirs from others. The title MSc usually reserved for courses focused on technology and/or computing, but occasionally for Music Business/Industry/Management or Music Therapy. There is no obvious consistency of usage of this term. York may have been the first to offer an MA/MSc in Music Technology and the University of Huddersfield was an earlier pioneer in an MA in Performance or Composition. By the year 2000, still only a small few post-92 universities were offering PGT courses, and the number had not increased that significantly by 2010. However, this has now increased following the introduction of the Master’s Degree Loan Scheme in 2016, as mentioned earlier. A detailed quantitative study commissioned by the government in 2019 to consider the effect of the new scheme on PGT recruitment as a whole (in all subjects) found a 36% increase in overall numbers, though little data to suggest significant changes in the demographic profiles of students.
Oxford Lecture on ‘Academic Music in the United Kingdom and the Dalliance with Practice’, 25 April 2023 – Handout for download
Posted: April 25, 2023 Filed under: Academia, Higher Education, History, Music - General, music analysis, Musical Education, Musicology, Practice-Research | Tags: Denis Arnold Hall, music in higher education, Oxford University 2 CommentsToday at 17:15 GMT, I am giving a lecture on ‘Academic Music in the United Kingdom and the Dalliance with Practice’ at the Denis Arnold Hall, Faculty of Music, Oxford University. This can also be viewed live on Zoom – please use the sign-up sheet here if you would like to watch it this way.
There will be an extensive hand-out distributed at the talk, which includes a timeline for the development of the music higher education sector since 1945, and wider information on courses available at present, some broad figures on student numbers, and also a little on faculties, as provided in more detail in my recent blog post.
As I hope this handout will be of interest to many, including those viewing the talk remotely, I am making it available on here.
Furthermore, as always I recognise the possibility of human error, and would ask that if anyone spots any significant errors in the information provided here to let me know, and I will modify it accordingly.
Some Musings on Music, Meritocracy and More
Posted: April 21, 2023 Filed under: Art, Culture, Music - General | Tags: Alfred Cortot, Bill Haley, brian ferneyhough, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Deborah Annetts, Eddie Cochran, elvis presley, Fats Domino, incorporated society of musicians, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, Madonna, marketing, meritocracy, promotion, rhythm 'n' blues, rock 'n' roll, thatcher, William Kapell 1 CommentI am often interested in the question of to what extent musical careers, in all types of music, can be said to be founded upon merit. There are three types of positions with which I am familiar, but all of which seem unsatisfactory. One is that of the simple ‘talent will out’, that if someone is sufficiently talented, or at least has attained a high level of accomplishment, then recognition and success will naturally follow. Another, which another musicologist recently related to me as hearing from students, maintains that ‘if you believe in yourself, you can make it’. A third, sometimes thought by some on the traditional left, would suggest that almost everything comes down to marketing and promotion, and the quality of what is being promoted is at most a secondary concern.
None of these really seem to encompass the multiple factors involved. The first two arguments seem to bracket out all sorts of contingencies. To pursue a successful career in which work is to be found in major urban centres, at the very least one needs the initial wherewithal to live in or near to those urban centres. This factor would have been much harder if I were starting out now rather than when moving to London in the early 1990s. Some have a whole range of contacts through chance of who are their family and friends, which are not available to others, and this can certainly accelerate the process. One needs the freedom to practice, to be available for gigs, which can be difficult if, for example, one has major caring responsibilities. And of course there are many other types of prejudice, racial, sexual, class-based, which it would be foolish and reckless not to acknowledge in terms of career paths sometimes being considerably more difficult for some than others. The Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, Deborah Annetts, recently testified to UK Members of Parliament on the prevalence of sexual harassment and how some female musicians are told to ‘sleep their way to the top’.
The third position, which also informs some sociology of art, brackets out the art itself, or at least reduces it to a rather bland commodity relative to systems of patronage, as well as power structures, and the like. But can anything be ‘sold’ in this way? I am no expert on marketing, but do not believe this, not least because for all successful marketing/promotion campaigns, there are also plenty of those which are unsuccessful, in ways which may not be wholly down to the nature of the marketing. No matter how skilfully marketed was the music of Brian Ferneyhough, I do not believe it would ever reach a mass audience – it is too intricate, requiring of sustained attention, in ways which do not concur with many people’s common approaches to listening, for that.
With this in mind, I do not believe the factors in the first two positions should be discounted. I doubt there are many musicians or music which have achieved some sustained recognition, in which there can not be found some evident of talent or accomplishment, even if not always in the same places. Madonna may not be one of the world’s great singers, but in terms of her other musical choices, dance, ability to move between a range of different styles and respond to changing times, and careful cultivation of visual image, clearly lots of other skills were involved in establishing, developing and consolidating her reputation. Thelonious Monk had as idiosyncratic a piano technique as one could imagine, and would frequently play wrong notes, but at the same time his playing achieved such a striking angular presence, which was a different type of quality. From a wholly different musical context, the same would often be said of pianist Alfred Cortot.
With respect to self-belief, this should surely not be discounted either, even if it is not the whole story. The view that simple determination will breed success is one I associate with the Thatcher era, and comes with the concomitant view that those who are less successful are themselves to blame. But many will experience good and bad times as musicians, and without self-belief, might just choose to abandon their activities during the bad ones. A conviction in the value of one’s work has sustained many a musician in this way. On the other hand, self-belief can also be a substitute for disciplined work, and the limitations of such an approach can quickly become apparent. Just because one believes in one’s own work does not guarantee that others will share this view, though it can inform the conviction with which the work is presented.
The visual aspect of musical performance may be one of the most problematic, however. It is widely recognised that the impact of many popular musicians is the product of numerous factors, definitely including but not limited to the music, as in the case of Madonna mentioned above. In classical, jazz and some other musics, there are different visual conventions, and the visual may not be so obviously foregrounded and developed as a central part of the art, but visual factors are certainly there. But when one accepts the visual as a component, then can one avoid such factors as musicians being judged on their looks as much as their music, as has certainly (and more than understandably) been raised as a source of objection by many female classical musicians in particular? Some popular musicians who may not always be regarded conventionally ‘beautiful’ have nonetheless found ways to generate striking visual images and presentation which have contributed to their success. But this can become more difficult as some get older (examples such as Tina Turner, who sustained a long career right up to her 80s, may be the exception rather than the rule), and of course racial and other prejudices can play a big part. At the height of mid-1950s rock ‘n’ roll, there were major African-American stars (Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Lloyd Price) alongside white ones (Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran), but it was not at all mere chance that a white musician, Elvis Presley, became the biggest star of all – Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records, recognised that it was through Elvis that there was a chance to bring music with a major African-American provenance to white audiences. Fats Domino was asked in the mid-1950s about this new music called rock ‘n’ roll, to which he replied that he called it rhythm ‘n’ blues and had been playing it in New Orleans since 1940. Even if African-Americans certainly played a part in the new movement, it was when white musicians also became involved that much larger audiences were found.
Audiences may be able to be ‘sold’ things, manipulated in various ways and induced to part with money when they might not have done so otherwise. Education can breed ‘ways in’ for more demanding music. But these processes are not, I believe, infinite in their scope, and some will never be persuaded of the value, to them, of certain music and musicians. And furthermore, this may relate to a range of factors over and above the music, including what the musician looks like. Careers can be worked on fruitfully and developed, but there are always other factors involved, not always in the control of the musician or those around them. To take the most dramatic examples: neither Buddy Holly nor classical pianist William Kapell could in any sense have had any meaningful agency relating to both of their tragic early deaths in plane crashes. While in either case these may in part have contributed to some of the mythology around them, obviously they could not continue to develop as musicians after then.
So many factors are involved in developing musical careers: talent, dedication and consequent accomplishment, self-belief, marketing, promotion and shrewd career choices, but equally privilege, prejudice, fortunate circumstances beyond the musician’s control, and so on. Some of these and other factors (or at least particular ‘packages’ of them) may constitute bottom lines, but are rarely the whole story. The models of meritocracy, of the ‘will to success’, or negative ones which deny the role of anything to do with the art, are insufficient.
Academic Freedom: definitions and risks
Posted: September 27, 2022 Filed under: Academia, Art, Culture, Germany, Higher Education, History, Music - General, Musical Education, Musicology, Practice-Research | Tags: 1988 education reform act, 1997 unesco recommendation concerning the status of higher eduaction teaching personnel, 2017 higher education and research act, 2021 higher education (freedom of speech) bill, academic freedom, Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group, activism, akua reindorf, alice sullivan, arif ahmed, brexit, brian ferneyhough, charles sanders pierce, christopher wiley, collegiality, david ruebain, decolonisation, edi, estelle morris, free speech, higher education policy institute, hillhead amendment, j.p.e. harper-scott, judith suissa, kathleen stock, laura favaro, lord jenkins, Model Code of Conduct for the Protection of Academic Freedom and the Academic Community in the Context of the Internationalisation of the UK Higher Education Sector, music and the university, nick hillman, office for students, philip ewell, quality assurance agency, quillette, researching and writing on contemporary art and artists, roy jenkins, royal holloway, schenkergate, tenure, times higher education supplement, timothy jackson, unesco, university college london, university of birmingham, university of southampton, university of sussex, wilhelm von humboldt, william cheng, wlliam matthews, writing about contemporary musicians 4 CommentsLast week I attended the debate ‘How can universities promote academic freedom? Insights from the front line of the gender wars’, at University College London’s Institute of Education. This was a stimulating and thoughtful event, organised in conjunction with the publication of a booklet of the same name by philosopher Professor Judith Suissa and sociologist Professor Alice Sullivan (both from UCL) (free to download). Suissa and Sullivan gave short introductions then responses to the booklet came from Baroness Estelle Morris (former Labour Secretary of State for Education), Professor David Ruebain (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Culture, Equality and Inclusion at the University of Sussex), Professor Arif Ahmed (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge) (Akua Reindorf was unable to be present). With a debate focused upon the issues of biological sex against gender, it would be hard to deny that the panel was dominated by those believing that the former is not simply subsumed within the latter, though I gather various proponents of the primacy of gender and/or trans individuals (the lack of which was noted by Ruebain) were invited but declined to participate. The discussion centered around the evidence and arguments in the booklet for concerted attempts to silence, no-platform and ostracise ‘gender-critical’ scholars, a phenomenon also identified in a recent Times Higher Education Supplement article by early career scholar Laura Favaro (also available at this link), based upon interviews with 50 academics involved with gender studies. Favaro found many examples of a culture of fear, self-censorship, gatekeeping within journals and academic networks, and a total lack of frank and open discussion on what are undoubtedly contested areas. Various panellists and members of the packed audience at the event related similar experiences. What I have not seen is gender-critical feminists attempting to have their opponents censored, no-platformed, or hounded from their positions, though some have naturally responded very negatively to highly abusive comments towards the former, sometimes advocating sexual or other violence.
Morris argued that the disputes relating to sex and gender were about ideology versus evidence-based reasoning. Sullivan argued that some university Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) organisations can be and have been infiltrated by those from activist groups with extremist views. Ahmed, who paid tribute to Suissa and Sullivan, recognising the concerted hostility they will have faced, also noted other areas of intolerance, such as a tendency to brand anyone in a university who was or is a supporter of Brexit as a bigot. Despite being a 200% Remainer myself, I would be hard-pressed to disagree that this is the case, and can see how much of a problem it is. Ruebain was the one panellist giving a somewhat different view, arguing that we need to understand the contexts in which contested examples of academic freedom occur, and also suggesting that the issues here are so intensely personal and emotionally felt by many that it is hard to subject them to the usual processes of academic critique. This may be the case, but personal feelings do not seem to be a concern for those engaged in quite vicious and abusive hate campaigns against those associated with gender-critical views, often trying to force them out of their job, as occurred with philosopher Professor Kathleen Stock at the University of Sussex, after facing a huge mobbing campaign from by students and colleagues. Ruebain also compared current debates with the fervent disputes between second-wave feminists and disability activists in the 1980s over such issues as abortion rights. One questioner argued that the situation depended a lot on the institution at which one was based, noting that UCL’s record on defending academic freedom and staff was exemplary, but the situation was rather different at the Universities of Birmingham or Sussex. A somewhat more ambivalent account of the debate was published by Jim Dickinson for Wonkhe.
Academic freedom is in my view an utterly essential component of university life, a non-negotiable prerequisite of scholarly rigour and integrity. I nonetheless find it disappointing to find that there are more than a few academics, including some in senior positions, who have a rather dismissive view of the whole concept. In part I believe this is relates to one of the most troubling recent phenomena in academia, its infiltration by activists, uninterested in any scholarly knowledge other than that which bolsters their a priori positions, who attempt to recruit in their own image, limit curricula and teaching materials to those things which concur with their activist beliefs, and can act shockingly towards other scholars or students who dare to disagree (more to follow on fair engagement with students of multiple political perspectives in a subsequent blog post). Also at stake is the legacy of postmodernism, sometimes imagined now to be a dated movement of the 1980s and 1990s which no longer carries any sway, but some of the aspects of which, in particular extreme relativisation of concepts of ‘truth’ (often in opposition to straw man characterisations of positions supposedly insisting on 100% objectivity), and the somewhat later dissolution of scholarship into politics, continue to be major presences on the academic landscape.
Stock has written of her memories of pugilistic debate from faculty members (mostly men) with visiting speakers from when she was a Masters philosophy student, which seemed frightening at the time and designed to humiliate the speakers. But for all the problems with this (and it is certainly possible to conduct robust debate in a more civilised fashion), she believes that what came later was worse. Stock observed an exaggerated synthetic ‘niceness’ in debates, but combined with unctuous name-dropping, endless rules around debate, rather arcane rituals for raising hands and fingers, and often banal questions. This did not however remove the aggression, but simply directed it elsewhere. In the absence of proper open debate, many would revert to surreptitious means to undermine others, through mass denunciations on social media, many ad hominem attacks, complaints, hidden campaigns, and so on. As so often, those enforcing an agenda ostensibly about ‘kindness’ could be amongst the most vicious in trying to silence those who disagree with them on anything. One professor has even described debate per se as ‘an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression.’
Suissa and Sullivan (whose excellent booklet I will not describe in detail here, as I would prefer that people read it themselves) find ample evidence of both students and academics attempting to suppress free speech and academic freedom, and make various key recommendations. These include the maintenance of the university as a pluralistic space which welcomes diverse views, avoiding official ideological viewpoints on behalf of institutions and the use of political lobby groups in shaping policy or providing training, and while recognising that activist networks have a place in academia, they must be independent of the university administration. They also advocate education of staff and students on academic freedom and the value of productive disagreement, including its legal and philosophical bases, the promotion of academic freedom alongside equality, including the appointment of a champion for academic freedom within the senior leadership team, further promotion of collegiality (sometimes a misused term taken to signify concurrence with a dominant ideology or promotion of a collective ‘brand’ – see below) and tackling harassment, providing security of tenure, signalling institutional support for academic freedom, and defence of the pursuit of truth. An article on the booklet, in particular the need for appointment of champions of academic freedom, can be read here.
Definitions
What does ‘academic freedom’ mean? Many at the debate agreed that it was a different concept to ‘free speech’, though the two do overlap. In a paper I gave in ‘Musicology and Academic Freedom’ at the Music and the University Conference at City, University of London in July, I enlisted several definitions which I wanted to share here as well as some other arguments made in this paper. Whilst the concept can be dated back many centuries, it is generally accepted that the moder definition has its roots in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt and the founding of the Berlin Universität in 1810. Humboldt published an essay entitled ‘Über die innere und äussere Organisation der höheren wissenschaftlichen Anstalten zu Berlin’ (1809-10), which has been translated as ‘On the Spirit and the Organisational Framework of Intellectual Institutions in Berlin’, Minerva, vol. 8, no. 2 (April 1970), pp. 242-250. The following are amongst the most pertinent passages:
Since these institutions [universities] can only fulfil their purposes when each of them bears continuously in mind the pure idea of science and scholarship [these two terms are used to translate Wissenschaft], their dominant principles must be freedom and the absence of distraction (Einsamkeit).
[…]
At the higher level, the teacher does not exist for the sake of the student; both teacher and student have their justification in the common pursuit of knowledge. The teacher’s performance depends on the students’ presence and interest – without this science and scholarship could not grow. If the students who are to form his audience did not come before him of their own free will, he, in his quest for knowledge, would have to seek them out. The goals of science and scholarship are worked towards most effectively through the synthesis of the teacher’s and the students’ dispositions.
[…]
The state must always remain conscious of the fact that it never has and in principle never can, by its own action, bring about the fruitfulness of intellectual activity. It must indeed be aware that it can only have a prejudicial influence if it intervenes. The state must understand that intellectual work will go on infinitely better if it does not intrude.
[…]
Now as regards the organisational and material side of the relationship of the institution to the state, the only concerns of the latter must be profusion (in the sense of mental power and variety) of intellectual talents to be brought together in the institution. This can be achieved through care in the selection of persons and the assurance of freedom in their intellectual activities. This intellectual freedom can be threatened not only by the state, but also by the intellectual institutions themselves which tend to develop, at their birth, a certain outlook and which will therefore readily resist the emergence of another outlook. The state must seek to avert the harm which can possibly arise from this source.
The heart of the matter is the appointment of the persons who are to do the intellectual work.
[…]
The state must not deal with its universities as Gymnasia or as specialised technical schools; it must not use its academy as if it were a technical or scientific commission. It must in general – with certain exceptions among the universities which will be considered later – demand nothing from them simply for the satisfaction of its own needs. It should instead adhere to a deep conviction that if the universities attain their highest ends, they will also realise the state’s ends too, and these on a far higher plane. On this higher plane, more is comprehended and forces and mechanisms are brought into action which are quite different from those which the state can command.
[…]
The young person, on entry into university, should be released from the compulsion to enter either into a state of idleness or into practical life, and should be enabled to aspire to and elevate himself to the cultivation of science or scholarship which hitherto have only been pointed out to him from afar.
The way thereto is simple and sure. The aim of the schools must be the harmonious development of all the capacities of their pupils. Their powers must be focused on the smallest possible number of subject- matters but every aspect of these must be dealt with to as great an extent as possible. Knowledge should be so implanted in the mind of the pupil that understanding, knowledge and creativity excite it, not through any external features, but through their inner precision, harmony and beauty. [. . . ] A mind which has been trained in this way will spontaneously aspire to science and scholarship.
Humboldt’s writings should be read in the context of the traditional German division between universities on one hand and academies of the sciences and arts on the other. He definitely favoured the former, and suggested that the latter have only really flourished where there are few universities. Academies had less strict requirements for selection of staff, compared to the habilitation required in a German university. Humboldt also believed the state should take exclusive control of appointments, rather than faculties:
Although disagreements and disputes within a university are wholesome and necessary, conflicts which might arise between teachers because of their specialised intellectual interests might unwittingly affect their viewpoints.
This important point is at odds with common processes for selection in the UK today.
From Humboldt’s ideas came the twin concepts of Lehrfreiheit (freedom to teach) and Lernfreiheit (freedom to learn), as subsets of Wissenschaftsfreiheit or Akademische Freiheit. These concepts developed through the course of the nineteenth century.
Another hugely important intervention in the development of the concept came from philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce, in his lectures delivered at Cambridge, MA in 1898 (collected in the 1992 Harvard University Press volume Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conferences Lectures of 1898), in particular that entitled ‘The First Rule of Logic’, in which he compared the situation in American universities deeply unfavourably with their German counterparts in terms of free intellectual inquiry and in particular the link between this and teaching:
…inquiry of every type, fully carried out, has the vital power of self-correction and of growth. This is a property so deeply saturating its inmost nature that it may truly be said that there is but one thing needful for learning the truth, and that is a hearty and active desire to learn what is true. If you really want to learn the truth, you will, by however devious a path, be surely led into the way of truth, at last. No matter how erroneous your ideas of the method may be at first, you will be forced at length to correct them so long as your activity is moved by that sincere desire. Nay, no matter if you only half desire it, at first, that desire would at length conquer all others could experience continue long enough. But the more voraciously truth is desired at the outset, the shorter by centuries will the road to it be.
In order to demonstrate that this is so, it is necessary to note what is essentially involved in The Will to Learn. The first thing that the Will to Learn supposes is a dissatisfaction with one’s present state of opinion. There lies the secret of why it is that our American Universities are so miserably insignificant. What have they done for the advance of civilization? What is the great idea or where is [a] single great man who can truly be said to be the product of an American University? The English universities, rotting with sloth as they always have, have nevertheless in the past given birth to Locke and to Newton, and in our time to Cayley, Sylvester and Clifford. The German universities have been the light of the whole world. The medieval University of Bologna gave Europe its system of law. The University of Paris, and that despised Scholasticism took Abelard and made him into Descartes. The reason was that they were institutions of learning while ours are institutions for teaching. In order that a man’s whole heart may be in teaching he must be thoroughly imbued with the vital importance and absolute truth of what he has to teach; while in order that he may have any measure of success in learning he must be penetrated with a sense of the unsatisfactoriness of his present condition of knowledge. The two attitudes are almost irreconcilable.
A range of statements followed from the American Association of University Professors, of which the most important is the ‘1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure’, which was and is endorsed by a wide range of US institutions:
- Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.
- Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject [my emphasis]. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.
- College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.
The idea of limitations on academic freedom with deference to religious or other related principles now seems archaic in the modern secular university, but is understandable in the context of its time. What exactly is entailed by the phrase ‘respect for the opinions of others’ is open to much interpretation (certainly it is hard to see how this is true of those who regularly brand their opponents fascists, communists, colonialists, white supremacists, and so on), but there can be proper arenas and frameworks for this, through scholarly forums and the like, in which any aspect of someone’s arguments can be rigorously debated so long as this does not trespass into the realms of personalised attacks on an ad hominem basis, invoking factors irrelevant to the work. Most arguments, within reason, should be allowed a fair hearing but so should challenges to such arguments. To separate individual from work is harder than ever, however, in a time of intense subjectivity in scholarship, in which some make their case essentially on the basis of who they are and the experiences they have had, rather than the cogency of their arguments, as identified in William Matthews recent article for the THES.
In the UK, the most significant definition of academic freedom in recent times came about in the 1988 Education Reform Act, specifically in the so-called ‘Hillhead amendment’, named after Lord [Roy] Jenkins of Hillhead, which appeared within Section 202. This concerned the appointment of a body of University Commissioners (following the abolition of tenure), who would have various tasks:
to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions;
Similar principles, presented in a more elaborate fashion, can be found in the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel:
III. 4: Institutions of higher education, and more particularly universities, are communities of scholars preserving, disseminating and expressing freely their opinions on traditional knowledge and culture, and pursuing new knowledge without constriction by prescribed doctrines. The pursuit of new knowledge and its application lie at the heart of the mandate of such institutions of higher education. In higher education institutions where original research is not required, higher-education teaching personnel should maintain and develop knowledge of their subject through scholarship and improved pedagogical skills.
VI. 26: Higher-education teaching personnel, like all other groups and individuals, should enjoy those internationally recognized civil, political, social and cultural rights applicable to all citizens. Therefore, all higher-education teaching personnel should enjoy freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, assembly and association as well as the right to liberty and security of the person and liberty of movement. They should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens, including the right to contribute to social change through freely expressing their opinion of state policies and of policies affecting higher education. They should not suffer any penalties simply because of the exercise of such rights. Higher-education teaching personnel should not be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention, nor to torture, nor to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In cases of gross violation of their rights, higher-education teaching personnel should have the right to appeal to the relevant national, regional or international bodies such as the agencies of the United Nations, and organizations representing higher-education teaching personnel should extend full support in such cases.
VI. 27: The maintaining of the above international standards should be upheld in the interest of higher education internationally and within the country. To do so, the principle of academic freedom should be scrupulously observed. Higher-education teaching personnel are entitled to the maintaining of academic freedom, that is to say, the right, without constriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express freely their opinion about the institution or system in which they work, freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in professional or representative academic bodies. All higher-education teaching personnel should have the right to fulfil their functions without discrimination of any kind and without fear of repression by the state or any other source. Higher-education teaching personnel can effectively do justice to this principle if the environment in which they operate is conducive, which requires a democratic atmosphere; hence the challenge for all of developing a democratic society.
VI. 28: Higher-education teaching personnel have the right to teach without any interference, subject to accepted professional principles including professional responsibility and intellectual rigour with regard to standards and methods of teaching. Higher-education teaching personnel should not be forced to instruct against their own best knowledge and conscience or be forced to use curricula and methods contrary to national and international human rights standards. Higher-education teaching personnel should play a significant role in determining the curriculum.
VI. 29: Higher-education teaching personnel have a right to carry out research work without any interference, or any suppression, in accordance with their professional responsibility and subject to nationally and internationally recognized professional principles of intellectual rigour, scientific inquiry and research ethics. They should also have the right to publish and communicate the conclusions of the research of which they are authors or co-authors, as stated in paragraph 12 of this Recommendation.
VI. 30: Higher-education teaching personnel have a right to undertake professional activities outside of their employment, particularly those that enhance their professional skills or allow for the application of knowledge to the problems of the community, provided such activities do not interfere with their primary commitments to their home institutions in accordance with institutional policies and regulations or national laws and practice where they exist.
The UK 2017 Higher Education and Research Act (which came in the wake of a wide range of changes to Higher Education from 2010 onwards and established the Office for Students, superseding the earlier Higher Education Funding Council for England and Office for Fair Access), contained relevant material on academic freedom in Section 2(8):
In this Part, “the institutional autonomy of English higher education providers” means—
(a) the freedom of English higher education providers within the law to conduct their day to day management in an effective and competent way,
(b) the freedom of English higher education providers—
(i) to determine the content of particular courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised and assessed,
(ii) to determine the criteria for the selection, appointment and dismissal of academic staff and apply those criteria in particular cases, and
(iii) to determine the criteria for the admission of students and apply those criteria in particular cases, and
(c) the freedom within the law of academic staff at English higher education providers—
(i) to question and test received wisdom, and
(ii) to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions,
without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at the providers.
For wider reasons beyond the scope of this article (but which will appear in a piece to be published in the THES in the week beginning 3 October), I do question some aspects of complete autonomy of higher education providers, which I do not believe has ever been wholly meaningful in light of wider bodies dedicated to the maintenance of standards (until recently by the Quality Assurance Agency). Furthermore staff deserve wider protection in terms of selection, appointment and dismissal practices, through employment laws which exceed the priorities of individual providers. Nonetheless, sections (a) and (c) are sound bases for the conducting of academic work.
In 2020, The Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group produced a document entitled ‘Model Code of Conduct for the Protection of Academic Freedom and the Academic Community in the Context of the Internationalisation of the UK Higher Education Sector’. Whilst recognising the difficulties inherent in defining academic freedom satisfactorily, this group emphasise the following freedoms, drawing upon the 1988, 1997 and 2017 provisions:
- teach, discuss, assess, define the curriculum and study within their areas of academic expertise and/or inquiry;
- promote and engage in academic thinking, debate and inquiry;
- carry out research, and publish the results and make them known;
- freely express opinions about the academic institution or system in which they work or study;
- participate in professional or representative academic bodies;
- not be censored; and,
- fulfil their functions without discrimination or fear of repression.
These should not supplant the earlier definitions, but can be combined with them to demonstrate the priorities, and this provides a good basis for formulating working definitions.
Finally, the 2021 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) bill (based on the white paper ‘Higher Education: Free Speech and Academic Freedom‘) from the UK Department of Education, still going through Parliament, lists the following duties for Higher Education Providers (HEPs):
A1 Duty to take steps to secure freedom of speech
(1) The governing body of a registered higher education provider must take the steps that, having particular regard to the importance of freedom of speech, are reasonably practicable for it to take in order to achieve the objective in subsection (2).
(2) That objective is securing freedom of speech within the law for—
(a) staff of the provider,
(b) members of the provider,
(c) students of the provider, and
(d) visiting speakers.
(3) The objective in subsection (2) includes securing that—
(a) the use of any premises of the provider is not denied to any individual or body on grounds specified in subsection (4), and
(b) the terms on which such premises are provided are not to any extent based on such grounds.
(4) The grounds referred to in subsection (3)(a) and (b) are—
(a) in relation to an individual, their ideas, beliefs or views;
(b) in relation to a body, its policy or objectives or the ideas, beliefs or views of any of its members.
(5) The objective in subsection (2), so far as relating to academic staff, includes securing their academic freedom.
(6) In this Part, “academic freedom”, in relation to academic staff at a registered higher education provider, means their freedom within the law—
(a) to question and test received wisdom, and
(b) to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves at risk of being adversely affected in any of the ways described in subsection (7).
(7) Those ways are—
(a) loss of their jobs or privileges at the provider;
(b) the likelihood of their securing promotion or different jobs at the provider being reduced.
(8) The governing body of a registered higher education provider must take the steps that, having particular regard to the importance of freedom of speech, are reasonably practicable for it to take in order to achieve the objective in subsection (9).
(9) That objective is securing that, where a person applies to become a member of academic staff of the provider, the person is not adversely affected in relation to the application because they have exercised their freedom within the law to do the things referred to in subsection (6)(a) and (b).
(10) In order to achieve the objective in subsection (2), the governing body of a registered higher education provider must secure that, apart from in exceptional circumstances, use of its premises by any individual or body is not on terms that require the individual or body to bear some or all of the costs of security relating to their use of the premises.
(11) In this Part—
references to freedom of speech include the freedom to express ideas, beliefs and views without suffering adverse consequences;
“registered higher education provider” and “governing body”, in relation to such a provider, have the same meanings as in Part 1 of this Act
[…]
A3 Duty to promote the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom
The governing body of a registered higher education provider must promote the importance of—
(a) freedom of speech within the law, and
(b) academic freedom for academic staff of registered higher education providers and their constituent institutions,
in the provision of higher education.
The bill goes on to list responsibilities for students unions, governing bodies and the Office for Students in these respects and in particular the creation of a Director of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom to monitor that such commitments on the part of HEPs are upheld.
While the bill is certainly not without problems, and may undergo further amendment before becoming law, I do believe overall it is a step forward. Those on the left who are committed to free speech and academic freedom should be prepared to concede some value in a piece of legislation introduced by a Conservative government.
Risks to Academic Freedom
In my own field of music/musicology, various recent events have highlighted issues of academic freedom. One is the affair known as ‘Schenkergate’, relating to the publication of a special issue of The Journal of Schenkerian Studies in 2020 in reference to the article by Philip A. Ewell, ‘Music Theory and the White Racial Frame’, Music Theory, vol. 26, no. 2 (September 2020). The controversy related in particular to an article by Schenker scholar Dr Timothy Jackson, making arguments about the prevalence of anti-semitism amongst African-Americans, and also arguing that the lack of involvement of African-Americans in music theory had much to do with the low incidence of classical music in the common upbringing of members of this community. Jackson found himself removed from the editorship of the journal as a result. He contested this in court and a Judge determined that this may violate his First Amendment rights. Prior to this, Jackson responded with an article for Quillette (‘The Schenker Controversy’, 20 December 2021) arguing for many fallacies in Ewell’s argument and reasoning.
The second affair was the resignation from a chair in musicology at Royal Holloway in the summer of 2021 of Professor J.P.E. Harper-Scott (who I will refer to as ‘Paul’, as that is how all who know him address him), about which I blogged earlier. Paul published an article online about his reasons for leaving academia, which included the following:
Without direct experience of academics until I went (as the first of my family) to university, I naively imagined them to be how they were presented in novels and TV programmes: sometimes quite bumbling and unworldly, but always committed to the pursuit of truth, never trusting in a commonplace ‘fact’ without subjecting it to the most serious sceptical scrutiny. This did not turn out to be true.
[…] It is a place filled with generally quite well-meaning people, but on the whole not with brave people, not people who are willing to follow the truth wherever it leads.
[….] I would put the problem in this (Kantian) way: I wrongly supposed that universities would be critical places, but they are becoming increasingly dogmatic.
This was followed by an example of a statement on the need to ‘decolonise’ the classical musical canon (on which subject I published an article in The Critic in July of this year), which was an example of what Harper-Scott deemed dogmatic, with a suggested alternative which he felt was more in the spirit of critical scholarly inquiry.
I share many of Paul’s concerns, and am also concerned with the trajectory of events relating to Schenkergate. But these relate to what I perceive as a range of factors which serve to limit and condition academic freedom in academia. So I offer the following list of these, some of which would concern those on the left, some those on the right, but all of which I think should concern anyone for whom academic freedom, defined more or less in the ways above, is a defining aspect of a university.
External Pressures from Industries and Institutions
I wrote more extensively about this subject in earlier blog posts here and here, but wish to emphasise (in line with the arguments in the later blog post), that in no sense should this be taken to imply that I oppose external engagement. I am referring to the situation whereby academics enter into partnerships with external institutions and bodies, which may be commercial, state-supported or partially state-supported. These partnerships may relate to research, teaching or both. In particular, I have in mind the situation in which the external institutions provide some financial support for these activities. If there is no such thing as a free lunch, there may also be no such thing as a free teaching or research grant. For such institutions to ask that their finance or other support entail concentration on certain areas is fair and to be expected. But what if the results are not necessarily what the external body wishes to hear?
The point may be made most clearly through reference to wider examples. Suppose that some major manufacturing corporation sponsors some research into the effects of particular types of manufacturing upon the environment. Perhaps the researchers in question may find their work leads them to the inexorable conclusion that this specific corporation are responsible for a range of environmentally damaging actions in the course of their regular activities, contrary to their own promotional material which argues that they are an environmentally-friendly corporation, also drawing attention to the fact that they sponsor this research in order to bolster such a thing. If the researchers felt under pressure to artificially modify or not publish their findings, for fear of not upsetting the corporation, this would in my view severely compromise academic freedom and integrity.
There needs to be some commonly agreed set of principles which become a basic prerequisite for academics entering into some partnership with an external institution, whereby they are free to follow where their research leads them without fear of the institution blocking their access or terminating the partnership prematurely, and also so that future partnerships will not discriminate against those who may have written critically about the institution in the past.
The Complex Relationship between Research and External Practice
This relates to concerns explored in some depth in the conference on ‘Writing on Contemporary Artists’ at the University of Surrey in 2017, organised by Christopher Wiley and myself, and features both in the 2020 Palgrave Macmillan, volume we edited, Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists: Challenges, Practices and Complexities, while in a specifically musical context will feature in our forthcoming Routledge volume Writing about Contemporary Musicians: Promotion, Advocacy, Disinterest, Censure. This subject is also discussed at more length in the two earlier blog posts linked to in the previous section.
What happens when academics are dealing with living or recently living practitioners or their estates – writers, composers, artists, directors of institutions, critics, promoters, and so on? Or if they have strong external connections with some of these people beyond academia? How free can they feel to write and research these independently, at least considering perspectives on them and their work which may not necessarily coincide with their own self-presentation, that of their publishers, and so on?
Is the role of academics to be ‘advocates’ for these figures, or is it the case, as I believe, that a too-strong application of this principle (as opposed to simply researching things to which one is sympathetic, which is a different matter) can easily result in hagiographic treatment? How do academics maintain critical independence without the fear of being frozen out of some of these people’s circles, their materials, and so on (a situation I know various scholars have experienced)? I have certainly felt the pressure when writing about a range of living composers whose work I also play, and to some extent upon whom I rely upon for some good favour, writing new works for me, recommending me to festivals to play their work, and so on. I am still unsure about the feasibility of reconciling this with being a critical scholar.
One of the factors afflicting a fair amount of writing on new music, in my view, is a failure to consider this. As I have written about in the case of various such writings, a position of defensive advocacy, coupled to attempts to pathologise any who disagree with a 100% favourable view, leads to something more akin to promotional material than more sober scholarly work.
There are of course also plenty of practitioners themselves active within academic arts departments. Whilst some are engaged in the type of more dispassionate scholarship characteristic of the humanities – and I would like to count myself in that category – in other cases the work is of a different nature, framing practice in terms of research questions and context, with the use of verbal material essentially to articulate the ways in which it qualifies ‘as research’. Artistic practitioners frequently have external careers, working in an alternative economy in which critical thinking is by no means necessarily respected or admired. Sometimes simply saying the right thing to the right people, those in positions of power able to do favours, and not questioning all sorts of dominant ideologies operative in these circles, is a much better bet than asking more difficult questions. This can lead to a situation which I conceive as ‘two cultures’ of scholars and practitioners in terms of the attitude and approaches they take.
These issues do, for sure, also apply to those who, as I do, seek to write in non-academic arenas about the arts (or other disciplines), for various reasons, not least because of the differing role that value judgement might play therein. But I think it is possible to differentiate between academic and other writing and not confuse the two. It is less clear where the distinction lies with non-written forms of practice.
Top-down demands by institutions.
In any institutions with a degree of central control of teaching and research, individual academics may find themselves in conflict with the explicit demands or requirements of their department, school, or whole university. Some may try to specify the contents of curricula, or require academics to fashion teaching in general towards generalised criteria of employability. In other cases, support and internal funding for research may rely upon its falling within certain areas, which may be fair enough, but could also require the employment of certain methods which themselves might be more likely to produce certain types of results. These factors might affect the extent, for example, to which teaching can realistically focus on critical perspectives upon the industries or institutions for which students might be looking to work, to link to the first point.
Elsewhere, policies relating to diversity or ‘decolonisation’ might dictate choices or approaches to their teaching, at worst precluding critical treatment of certain types of subjects, and conversely requiring only negative or pejorative attitudes towards others. It is notable in my experience that some who are ferociously defensive of their independence in other contexts can also be supportive of top-down policies in these respects.
But I believe it is important to maintain independence right down to singular academics when it comes to precisely how they conduct their teaching and research. It is fair that departments need to require that certain things are taught as part of a programme, and that certain knowledge and skills are imparted, but the approach to so doing should be left to the individual academic as far as possible. In this respect I have a lot of sympathy with the 2021 Higher Education Bill.
This said, as I will argue in next week’s THES, I do believe that there is a requirement for provision of certain core subjects to a recognised level in all regionalities of the country (not least to facilitate ‘commuter students’, not wishing to incur huge amounts of debt through moving away from home to study), and in this article will advocate some type of tertiary ‘national curriculum’, a more rigorous form of the types of subject benchmarks previously provided by the QAA. Nonetheless, it should still be possible to maintain freedom of individual academics within a framework of encouraging pluralistic perspectives and debate.
Departmental ‘branding’
Different academics, sometimes of very different or opposing views, work together in departments. A further concern in terms of academic freedom has to do with pressures to conform with prevailing orthodoxies within a department, not questioning these or colleagues who propagate them, so as to maintain a consistent ‘brand’ for a department which is competing with others for students.
Sometimes the term employed here to put pressures on individual academics is ‘collegiality’, understood as working within a set of parameters, not markedly questioning them in ways which are incompatible with a group view. But this is not consistent with what I think is a decent definition provided in the UNESCO 1997 document:
UNESCO 1997, VI. 32: The principles of collegiality include academic freedom, shared responsibility, the policy of participation of all concerned in internal decision making structures and practices, and the development of consultative mechanisms. Collegial decision-making should encompass decisions regarding the administration and determination of policies of higher education, curricula, research, extension work, the allocation of resources and other related activities, in order to improve academic excellence and quality for the benefit of society at large.
All of this is entirely compatible with permitting academics to work without feeling pressure to conform or fashion their work in line with some ‘majority view’ in their department, and I think this is also essential.
Need to concentrate work in particular fields.
Securing academic jobs depends a good deal on one’s particular field and the job opportunities available. In the UK, fewer than 20% of students take traditional BMus or BA courses with a humanities approach which includes historical, analytical, critical and other types of musicology. The remainder take courses in musical theatre, music technology, popular music to a lesser extent, and certain types of musical performance, all of which are primarily vocationally oriented. As a result, the openings for historical musicologists (especially those working on early music), music analysts, and indeed ethnomusicologists working on the non-Western world are limited. Even those already holding university positions can come under pressure to shift in certain directions in light of changing provision, and some have encountered redundancies as a result. To link to a point made earlier, in some contexts a more critical view of the music industry, compared to some presentations of it as a model of diversity and inclusivity, may create problems for the individual academics if they are seeking work in institutions wedded to such a view.
Here I would look back to the Humboldt model and make what now seems a radical suggestion, which is that appointments should be administered centrally by the state rather than individual institutions, so as to ensure a fair distribution and representation of plural areas of teaching and research. Individual departments may recruit ‘in their own image’, and this can have the effect of shutting out openings for academics who once again do not fit with the dominant ‘brand’.
Social Justice
Here I have in mind the view put forward by William Cheng, in his 2016 book Just Vibrations, which has received positive endorsement from a range of leading musicologists (see for example here and here), though others have written very critically about this (see also here). Cheng is dismissive of academic freedom and even of ‘the belief that academics have a right to pursue their work free from political pressures and without fear of termination’. In place of this he advocates a musicology which he says ‘upholds interpersonal care as a core feature’. This is hardly compatible with Cheng’s own dismissive remarks about other musicologists and musicology, but is part of a certain view, usually linked to the term ‘social justice’, seemingly innocuous, but which in reality requires that researchers comply with an unyielding political agenda and fashion their work towards this. A recent position advertised at the University of Southampton Music Department which included ‘social justice’ in the job title. I do not see the difference between this and advertising a position in ‘Music and Support for Jeremy Corbyn’, ‘Musicology and Brexit Advocacy’, and so on – it appears entirely unreasonable and a constraint on academic freedom to specify a specific political outlook in a job description, and this should be investigated in terms of employment law. The view of Cheng and others reminds me strongly of the dictates in various undemocratic countries, in which academics and artists found themselves under strong pressure to propagate particular political ideologies, or find themselves facing censure, termination or worse. This should be utterly unacceptable to anyone concerned about academic freedom.
Student-as-consumer
A new study conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Nick Hillman, ‘“You can’t say that!” What students really think of free speech on campus’ (June 2022)) suggests that very significant numbers of UK students prioritise what they regard as demands for safety and protection from discrimination over free speech, wish to place issues such as sexism and racism outside of the boundaries of legitimate debate, would limit expression of views which offend certain religious groups, and so on.
We hear in many places about the vital role of students as ‘consumers’ who make the activities of universities possible, definitively placing teaching rather than research at the centre of their activities. The pressure on institutions to respond to demands from these ‘consumers’ can be intense, and it is by no means guaranteed that they will always act to protect the freedoms of academics in the face of student pressure.
Here I think we do need statutory measures implemented and enforced by the state, and also welcome some of the proposals in the 2021 act for this reason. For students to be able to hound out academics because they do not like some of what they have to say (as opposed to illegal activity or other things which transgress the inevitable constraints on free speech which need to be enforced by law) is to produce a culture more reminiscent of Mao’s China during the Cultural Revolution.
While formal disciplinary mechanisms precluding academic freedom in the Western world may not be that extensive, there are other pressures which can lead to self-censorship. These include increasingly precarious employment. In the UK there is no tenure system, and – as we are witnessing in other areas of the arts and humanities at present – academics can find themselves dispensable.
Some on the left often advocate for silencing of those they deem racist, transphobic, etc., but are highly defensive when others are accused of anti-semitism (or when those associated with genderist politics are accused of misogyny). Some on the right focus on anti-semitism (which ought to be an issue for those of all political persuasions) or advocacy of views they associate with terrorism, but are more defensive with respect to other things. I believe that only in very blatant and explicit cases should any of these be used as a justification for limiting academic freedom. Anti-Zionists and gender-critical feminists should not feel that their view is illegitimate in academia.
Critical subjects should remain a presence in all universities. All academics must be free to follow where their research and convictions take them, even if their conclusions are not what their institutions, external partners, or colleagues want to hear. To fashion one’s work according to the demands of any of these is another fundamental betrayal of academic freedom.
Critical Engagement with Practice is not the same as subservience, or being a practitioner
Posted: August 3, 2022 Filed under: Academia, Culture, Higher Education, Music - General, music analysis, Musical Education, Musicology | Tags: artistic research, autoethnography, C.P. Snow, critical thinking, ethnography, musicology, practice, practice-as-research, Practice-Research, ref, research excellence framework, terry eagleton, two cultures 5 CommentsOver a long period, I have repeatedly considered the question of ‘practice’ in an academic context, its meanings and implications, following on from earlier writings on the relationship between practice and research (see an index to earlier blog posts on this subject here), then most recently two articles in the Times Higher Education Supplement arguing for the need of different means to integrate practitioners into academia (see here and here) and then a blog article intended as a dialectical response to those articles, drawing upon a wider debate of the relationship between ‘advocacy’ and ‘criticism’, mapped by some onto ‘practitioners’ and ‘scholars’ respectively.
These subjects remain not only complex, both in theory and literally in ‘practice’, but also touch upon raw nerves amongst various scholars and practitioners. I have encountered significant rage from some composers at the suggestion that perhaps, just as few would suggest that musicological scholars are experts in the practice of composition, they might show some humility towards musicologists as well, rather than assuming they know just as much about their discipline and are equally adept at teaching it. Much of this anger likely relates to competition for positions in an ever-more competitive and narrowing academic job market, especially at the current time, when at least in some other arts/humanities subjects (not music as of recently, though over the last two decades a significant number of music departments and programmes have closed), departments have been making sweeping cuts (for example Roehampton University).
There are those who choose to view the humanities on one hand, and practical work and the sciences on the other, as fundamentally opposing groups of disciplines, not only in their subject matter, but also in approach, method, ethos, and so on, so that any teaching which relates to the former is antithetical to the latter. I fundamentally disagree, and believe this view is at odds with the defining aspect of a university (as also argued back in 2010 in an article by Terry Eagleton, claiming that a university without humanities would be like ‘a pub without alcohol’). But that issue, which leads back to C.P. Snow’s 1959 essay on The Two Cultures, is extensive and for another article.
What I want to consider here is the role of universities in terms of engagement with practice, both practice undertaken by academics themselves, and that conducted in external institutions. In many ways I believe this is not just important but quite vital in a range of disciplines. Those working in medicine or other health sciences need to draw upon knowledge garnered through practical medical work, and conversely develop research with practical application. The same is true in study of business and the law. A literary scholar is engaging at a deep level with literary practice, just as is a music analyst with the musical equivalent. The extent to which academic research into the arts does or should feed into practice is more open to question, however. Certainly in the case of music there is a body of musicological opinion which is markedly sceptical about the value of performers using the findings of analytical and other research to inform their own performances, noting the very limited to which a great many important performers have done so over history, and how often their performances are quite distinct from what might be implied by such research. The same is true of composition – someone once wrote sardonically about composers who think that if one can analyse music, one can compose it, it is just a matter of doing the process in reverse! Nonetheless, in other ways performers do frequently draw upon knowledge in the business of crafting a performance (sometimes simply that garnered from listening to other performances), as do composers, and so such criticisms may in reality relate more to specific strategies than the use of external knowledge per se in the process of artistic creation.
Some areas such as pure maths (at the heart of my own first degree) may be different with respect to practical engagement; certainly from what I recall 35 years on a good deal of pure mathematical research was undertaken without primary consideration for its potential application, which was something to be discovered later on. I believe (but am no expert) that a similar approach underlies some work in other ‘pure’ sciences, and this is certainly true of those non-empirical branches of philosophy which believe in the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge.
But in fields for which large areas of practical activity exist, it would be foolish to deny the value of engaging with knowledge drawn from this realm. I will from this point limit my discussion to artistic areas, as they are those which I know best. The key issue, in my view, is not whether but how one should do so. And this is where I would emphasise the vital aspect of a critical engagement with practice, and also of academic independence. When dealing with external practitioners or institutions dedicated to practice, one is confronted with those who have their own distinct desires, needs, economic imperatives, possible rivalries with others, and so on. Not all of these things would make for good scholarship if taken at face value. An artist may prefer a scholar to focus exclusively on their most successful work, not that whose merits might be more questionable, but a scholar who did so and claimed to be examining the work in its entirety would be disingenuous. The same is true of one examining a theatre and the responses of its audiences, who chose to bracket out from their study those audience responses which were less positive, in order to avoid upsetting the theatre owners. To use a dichotomy underlying a blog post from almost a decade ago, this is the difference between scholarship and PR. The scholar’s task is to follow where the results of their research lead them; to bury some of these in order to keep an external partner happy, or for that matter to undertake the research in such a way as to make such an outcome inevitable (as I have criticised sharply in some varieties of ethnographic work which eschew a critical view of the views and perceptions of their subjects, and as such can amount to hagiography), is to foresake one of the most fundamental aspects of being a scholar.
What I am arguing here is that critical scholarly engagement with practice (which can certainly involve partnerships and the like) should not be confused with a subservient relationship to this. This may not be the preference of some external practitioners, but if they wish for academic input, they need to respect the integrity of the academics involved.
But what about if the scholar is also the practitioner, as is the case in various forms of practice-as-research, artistic research, and so on? I have argued repeatedly that the question of whether certain practice is research is rather banal. In some ways most practice can be construed as such (as most practice requires answering certain types of questions to which there are multiple possible answers, and a range of methods for doing so), but what really matters is the quality of the research. This is not necessarily synonymous with what satisfies other aesthetic criteria (in an artistic context), but has to do with the generation of new knowledge expressed in the form of practice, which can have at least potential application for others. So an artist who develops new approaches which are found to bear aesthetic fruit, and upon which others can draw, would in an academic context generally be thought of as having done valuable research of a type.
Not all do accept this view of research (certainly artistic researchers have on the whole rejected the idea that research can simply be located in practice itself). I do accept it, but I am less sure of the extent to which it maps onto other forms of research, or qualifies the practitioner to undertake the latter, other than in some exceptional circumstances. Furthermore, while the quality of such research can, I believe, be gauged simply by close inspection of the practical work engendered, I wonder of the extent to which those engaged in assessment really do those to an intense degree (hardly possible if one has a wide range of things to assess), or whether the research quality is based upon finding the work more-or-less seems to resemble some of the qualities presented in associated verbal material (see my post on the 300-word statements that are essentially mandatory for submission of practice-based outputs to the REF).
Once again, I return to the question of critical engagement, or self-critical engagement. A practitioner can describe their work, even give a significant amount of detail about how it was put together, upon which ideas, philosophies or other determinants they have drawn (as one will find in many an ‘artist’s statement’), but that does not amount to this form of engagement. What can be difficult for practitioners is an attempt to ‘stand outside’ of their own work (and the immediate concerns of their own self), especially when in other contexts they are required to ‘sell themselves’ and in the process hide any acknowledgement of weaknesses, doubts or other more ambivalent self-reflection. Of course academics are far from immune to the latter tendency, which can sometimes dampen the possibilities of their own self-criticism, but they do function in scholarly arenas where if they do not do so, others can and often will follow up on vulnerabilities in their work, which is not always the case in more precious artistic circles.
The much-debated and contested field of autoethnography appears to me to hinge on the critical element; critical self-reflection upon personal experience, for the purposes of generating new knowledge which wider potential application is not the same thing as simply writing about oneself (which would be closer to autobiography), though a fair amount of writing and lectures I have encountered which is billed as autoethnography comes closer to the second category.
One anecdote may explain how these different attitudes and approaches can also inform teaching and its relationship to external practice. At a former institution, I was once tasked with developing a module on ‘Music and the Marketplace’, which I conceived as a broad consideration of the ways in which market forces inform music and music-making over a period of history, how other forms of music-making less subject to market forces might be different in nature, and so on. I had to be away for a period for some external performing work, so someone else took over the module design in my absence. When I returned, it had been changed to something like ‘How to get ahead in the musical marketplace’, which was a long way from my original design. What is the difference exactly? The module as originally conceived was about a critical engagement with the practice of music-making and its economic context. This by no means need imply a primarily negative view of market forces or their effect upon music, but should have been able to entertain a plurality of possible perspectives based upon careful and critical study of the phenomenon. The latter would have been entirely an ’employability’ module. Now I am certainly not going to deny the importance of such things. Some aspects of such teaching, such as how to write a CV or design a business plan, I would categorise as ancillary rather than academic skills – certainly they are things which do not necessarily require a university in order to be learned. But if employability skills become the only or primary things taught in a university context, or the attitude associated with them underlies the majority of teaching, I wonder then if a university degree has become more of a training course, lacking true intellectual inquiry and critical thinking that is more than purely functional. This touches on the question of a humanities approach – critical thinking in that context I would associate with a relatively dispassionate search for ‘pure’ knowledge, rather than subsuming that knowledge to narrow external criteria such as ‘how do I get ahead?’ or ‘how do I keep certain people happy?’
Any academic department without critical scholars will be impoverished in terms of the wider mission of a university. Practitioners can be critical scholars/thinkers as well, as can external partners, but one should not assume this is necessarily the case and certainly not ignore the possibility that other agendas may condition their thinking, either as expressed explicitly or implicitly assumed. In order that universities fulfil their central mission, it is vital to engage with practice, but in a critical and independent manner, whilst recognising that simply undertaking practice and promoting it in a certain way is not at all the same thing. And institutions must take care to guard and protect scholars’ independence from external pressures, simply to ensure that what they do remains scholarship. Then there is no reason to worry that engagement with practice entails any necessary conflict with the imperatives of research.
Musicological Observations 12: Articles and links relating to Practice-Research
Posted: August 2, 2022 Filed under: Academia, Culture, Higher Education, Music - General, Musical Education, Musicology, New Music, Practice-Research | Tags: camden reeves, christopher fox, christopher frayling, christopher leedham, david pocknee, huib schippers, james bulley, joanne 'bob' whalley, john croft, lauren redhead, lawrence dunn, linda candy, luk vaes, martin parker dixon, martin scheuregger, nicholas till, Ozden Sahin, piers hellawell, practice reearch, practice-as-research, praguk, TEMPO 3 CommentsIn advance of writing a new blog post on academic engagement with practice, I thought it might be useful to give links to my various writings on practice-research and other important links in one place here, much from the period following the publication of John Croft’s article ‘Composition is not Research’, Tempo, Vol. 69, Issue 272 (April 2015), pp. 6-11.
Here is Croft’s article and my response:
John Croft, ‘Composition is not Research’.
Ian Pace, ‘Composition and Performance can be, and often have been, Research’.
The following articles appeared in the same issue of Tempo as my response to Croft. Unfortunately there do not appear to be open access versions of them available.
Camden Reeves, ‘Composition, Research and Pseudo-Science: A Response to John Croft’.
John Croft, ‘Composing, Research and Ways of Talking’ (a response to both Reeves and myself)
Blog posts
Musicology is not Musical PR. A post from 2013, from when I started to think hard about the different value-systems and expectations of scholarship from practitioners and musicologists.
Research Forum, ‘Can Composition and Practice be Research? Critical Perspectives’, City University, November 25th, 2015. This was a post in advance of the debate.
‘Musicological Observations 4: Can Commercial Music be Research?’ This was an earlier article asking about the relationship between commerce and research in a musical context.
Performance-as-Research – A Reply to Luk Vaes. This was a response to an article by artistic researcher Luk Vaes (linked to in the post) in advance of the debate.
Video of Research Seminar on Composition and Performance as Research, and some wider responses to John Croft and others. This contains the full video of the debate, some of my text presented there (the information on university music departments is rather dated, and will be supplanted by new information posted on this blog soon), and wider responses to Croft’s response.
Some final thoughts on composition, performance, the REF, and teaching. Subsequent reflections following the debate.
Those 300-word statements on Practice-as-Research for the RAE/REF – origins and stipulations – ‘academic butt-covering’ or more problematic? Specifically on the role of 300-word statements accompanying practice-based outputs.
The RAE and REF: Resources and Critiques. An article written during the period of the 2018 industrial action in academia, collating a wide range of views on these institutions mostly expressed on social media, with wider links to literature on the subject. This contains a small amount relating to practice-research and the REF.
Musicological Thoughts 9: Practitioners and Scholars – Advocacy vs Criticism? A much more recent post, entailing some revision of earlier positions and somewhat more sceptical about the extent to which practitioners and scholars are able to find genuine common ground.
Musicological Thoughts 10: The Value of Empirical Musicology for the Performer? A piece written during the 2022 Performance Studies Network conference, after a mixture of listening to papers and practising, considering the relationship between practice and a particular musicological sub-discipline.
Two other articles, not blog posts, which I wrote earlier this year for the Times Higher Education Supplement, are also relevant in this context:
‘We need a Research and Practice Excellence Framework’ (10 May 2022)
‘University departments need a broad range of performing artists’ (22 May 2022) (written in response to Victoria Kelley, ‘The REF does not disadvantage practice-based subjects’ (13 May 2022)).
The blog post on ‘Practitioners and Scholars’ above is in part an attempt to offer a further side to this debate, not possible within the word-count of the THES articles.
Wider links
The following are a range of further weblinks available at the time of the debate.
Piers Hellawell, ‘Treating Composers as Researchers is Bonkers.’
Luk Vaes, ‘When Composition is not Research.’
Lawrence Dunn, ‘Squaring the damn composition-research circle.’
Martin Parker Dixon, ‘Composition can be research (some comments on John Croft’s recent article).’
David Pocknee, ‘Composition Is Not A Jaffa Cake, Research Is Not A Biscuit: A Riposte to John Croft.’
Lauren Redhead, ‘Is Composition Research?’
Nicholas Till, ‘Opus versus Output’
Huib Schippers, ‘The Marriage of Art and Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for Music Research in Practice-based Environments.’
Christopher Fox, ‘Music for a Dis-Uniting Kingdom?’ (Including some reflections on composition as research).
The following book chapter continues some of the important themes. Unfortunately it is not available open access, but can be requested from the authors at the link below.
Martin Scheuregger and Christopher Leedham, ‘The Purpose of the Written Element in Composition PhDs’, in Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, edited Christopher Wiley and Ian Pace (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 65-90.
The website for PRAGUK (Practice Research Group UK) includes a good list of major texts on the subject. Especially important, coming out of this group, is the following:
James Bulley and Özden Şahin, ‘Practice Research’ (2021).
And the following are some earlier relevant articles more widely on practice and research:
Christopher Frayling, ‘Research in Art and Design.’
Linda Candy, ‘Practice Based Research: A Guide.’
Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley and Lee Miller, ‘Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain: A Case Study’, in John Freeman (ed) Blood, Sweat and Theory: Research through Practice in Performance. (Middlesex University Press, London, 2010), pp. 218-232.
Musical Internationalism in Nazi Germany – table of events
Posted: August 1, 2022 Filed under: Germany, History, Music - General, Musicology, New Music Leave a comment[This full post will appear in March 2023].
New Music 1 – A Niche World
Posted: July 29, 2022 Filed under: Academia, Culture, Music - General, Musical Education, Musicology, New Music, Uncategorized | Tags: anne boissiere, arnold schoenberg, atonality, berlin novembergruppe, bjorn heile, charles wilson, cold war, Dick Hebdige, Donald Martino, gary e. mcpherson, makis solomos, Martin Iddon, milton babbitt, moderne, modernism, modernisme, modernismo, New Modernist Studies, New Music, nicholas cook, oxford handbook of music performance, paul bekker, richard taruskin, richard toop, robert walker, roger sessions, routledge research companion to modernism in music, subculture, susan mcclary, terminal prestige, the composer as specialist, theodor adorno, universities, who cares if you listen? 4 CommentsIn several recent writings and various upcoming ones I have been considering in a more sustained fashion wider aspects of the culture of new music, both historically and in the present day. My long chapter, just published, ‘New Music: Performance Institutions and Practices’, in The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance, Volume 1, edited Gary E. McPherson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 396-455, traces the growth of a network of festivals, concert series and other aspects of a new music infrastructure from after the end of World War One, as well as the development of specialised performance skills on the part of individual interpreters and ensembles, all as part of a specific culture of ‘new music’ which developed with a degree of autonomy from a more mainstream culture of art music performance (as represented by orchestral, chamber, choral, solo concerts of repertoire primarily from the common practice period) over the course of a century. This very fact of inhabiting a separate realm is to me a defining aspect of new music, a term which has developed ever since the publication of Paul Bekker’s vital essay ‘Neue Musik’ (1919), advocating a range of new approaches to music, some of them then still relatively latent, which constituted a significant break with or at least shift of emphasis from the immediate past, one which was amplified at a time which saw the collapse of various aspects of the pre-war order, revolution in Russia, and an attempt revolution in Germany, which members of the influential Berlin Novembergruppe sought to sublimate into artistic creation.
In ‘Modernist Fantasias: The Recuperation of a Concept’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 144, no. 2 (2019), pp. 473-493, starting from a detailed critical examination of The Routledge Research Companion to Modernism in Music, edited Björn Heile and Charles Wilson (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019), I consider the provenance and development of the term ‘modernism’ (and its equivalents such as French modernisme, German Moderne, Spanish modernismo and so on) both in music and other arts, not least in terms of recent attempts to frame the concept more broadly than hitherto (in some cases to date it back to the French Revolution) as well as to recapture it as a living force deserving of reconsideration, as informed the so-called New Modernist Studies in literary and cultural scholarship beginning in 1999, which has been matched more gradually by the growth of parallel scholarship in music. I have also been working on a book chapter considering the historiography of new music since 1989, and recently gave a lecture looking more broadly at historiographical issues through the 20th and 21st century, which have also been the theme of other lectures and publications considering the ways in which ‘experimental’ and ‘minimal’ music have informed such historiography.
All of this work, combined with my ongoing work on the creation and development of the infrastructure for new music in post-1945 Germany, have brought to the fore difficult questions relating to new music as a whole and its place today. I have been professionally active as a pianist in the world of new music for three decades, and have become intimately aware of its range of mores, orthodoxies, internal politics, and so on, and the ways in which its institutions and those operating those tend to work. It remains a field of cultural activity which in my opinion has immense value, but claims for its wider importance and significance are less easy to articulate in a manner which might convince those who need convincing. But this latter activity, if one believes this importance to be the case (which I do, but in a less unequivocal manner than I might have done 15-20 years ago), is vital if those engaged with new music seek an impact and respect beyond the narrow realms of fellow travellers. This is not so often to be found, and a reticence to engage with the wider issues concerned suggests either dangerous complacency or even a wilful disregard married to a sense of entitlement, which I believe should be challenged.
I am fully aware that there are a great many who would describe a lot of the atonal music I play (and even some of the more dissonant late tonal music as well), and which those I know compose, at the politest as ‘not music’, often through much harsher derogatory epithets. These will include some friends, some students and many other members of the wider public with no personal investment in this work nor necessarily any desire for such. It is much too easy to dismiss those who think in such a way as idiots, philistines, etc., in the process writing off large swathes of any population. But in my experience those who think such a way do not particular care unless they feel made to listen to such music, whether in a performance situation where it is not their reason for being there, feeling it is imposed upon them in education, or in the face of stentorian claims about its importance.
Yet one might struggle to be aware of this within the rarefied circles of those professionally involved in new music. That a great many people might be not simply indifferent but actively hostile to their music in the contexts described above can seem a subject which it is unacceptable even to consider. That the work of musicians involved must be vital and must deserve the widest support is an article of faith, or at least amongst different factions of individuals, who do not necessarily extend this view to members of rival factions. Some looking from outside might be shocked to see the extent of the personalised vitriol extended by some towards anyone (not least critics, but also various others) who aver an opinion that they do not find some piece of music engaging, moving, or some other quality they seek. The response can be to pathologise those who think such a way, or seek to disallow their opinions from being heard. Following the recent death of Richard Taruskin, there was a furious set of posts on social media about a highly critical review he wrote of two CDs of the American composer Donald Martino, which extended into a wider critique of aspects of new music (see below). The view seemed to be that the only type of legitimate review is one which praises this type of work, and anything else should not be allowed to be printed. It would be interesting to see this principle applied to restaurant reviewing – I am sure some restaurant owners would be more than happy.
There are ways to frame new music and its particularity which avoid the need to make wider claims for its public significance. In a 2014 article, Martin Iddon conceptualised new music as a type of ‘subculture’, drawing upon the concept propounded most notoriously by Dick Hebdige in his 1979 book Subculture: The Meaning of Style. I have used this concept myself in my ‘New Music’ article mentioned above, but have doubts (some reservations expressed in a footnote there did not make it into the final version!). Certainly new music has from the outset entailed a realm of activity distinct from a ‘mainstream’, as is true of many subcultures explored and theorised by Hebdige and others (space does not allow consideration here of the later concept of ‘post-subculture’). But its economic situation is not at all comparable with the subculture of the mods, rockers, punks or whatever. In large measure, new music activity relies heavily on subsidy for its continued operation; it would not be financially viable via ticket sales alone, other than very small operations. This subsidy comes either from public money generated through taxation and distributed in various ways via local, regional and state arts organisations, as is the case in much of Western Europe and to a lesser extent the UK (though considerably less so in the United States), or through the patronage of universities, in which those involved in new music production may find employment and some concomitant financial support for their activities. These things lend such music a level of institutional or official prestige which is quite uncharacteristic of other forms of subculture. If one could imagine a group of death metal fans receiving regular government grants to develop their music, clothing, writings, and so on, and present these in major government-backed venues, this would surely seem a long way from the conventional idea of a subculture.
Here subcultural theory does present one phenomenon which is familiar in part: numerous studies observe how subcultures, despite defining themselves in opposition to some mainstream, exhibit marked homologous tendencies and appear to require a degree of discipline and unity from their own members, with little tolerance for internal dissent. In the case of new music circles, it would be untrue to deny the existence of divisions, because of the opposing factions mentioned earlier. But these are divisions between different groups competing for the mantle of new music, seen as representing progress, the one true way forward, the most supposedly enlightened form of music, and so on. It would be much more rare to hear many within any faction questioning the status of new music as a whole, or the purpose of its institutions. Some who have done – not least various of the key figures viewed as ‘minimalist’ (Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, etc.) – have tended to operate to a large degree outside of these circles, while others holding to a neo-romantic or other related late tonal aesthetic have sought and sometimes found recognition within more mainstream performance circles.
In subsequent posts, I will consider wider issues to do with the institutionalisation of new music, the means by which it is legitimated (not least, in present times, by attachment to various political causes), and look more widely at the question of why new music and its practitioners enjoy a status in universities not always granted to other types of musicians and scholars. But here I want to consider some of the starkly opposed views from musicians scholars regarding the prestige of new music.
Milton Babbitt was one of the most articulate advocates of the benefits of new music composition in a university setting, allowing some degree of autonomy from audience indifference or hostility, or commercial pressures. This was outlined in his essay ‘The Composer as Specialist’ (1958), first published in High Fidelity, vol. 8, no. 2 (February 1958) to which editors (rather than Babbitt himself) gave the title ‘Who Cares if you Listen?’
Why should the layman be other than bored and puzzled by what he is unable to understand, music oranything else? It is only the translation of this boredom and puzzlement into resentment and denunciation that seems to me indefensible. After all, the public does have its own music, its ubiquitous music: music to eat by, to read by, to dance by, and to be impressed by. Why refuse to recognize the possibility that contemporary music has reached a stage long since attained by other forms of activity? The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. But to this, a double-standard is invoked, with the words “music is music,” implying also that “music is just music.” Why not, then, equate the activities of the radio repairman with those of thetheoretical physicist, on the basis of the dictum that “physics is physics”? It is not difficult to find statements like the following, from the New York Times of September 8, 1957: “The scientific level of the conference is so high . . . that there are in the world only 120 mathematicians specializing in the field who could contribute.” Specialized music on the other hand, far from signifying “height” of musical level, has been charged with “decadence,” even as evidence of an insidious “conspiracy.”
I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition. By so doing, the separation between the domains would be defined beyond any possibility of confusion of categories, and the composer would be free to pursue a private life of professional achievement, as opposed to a public of unprofessional compromise and exhibitionism.
But how, it may be asked, will this serve to secure the means of survival for the composer and his music? One answer is that, after all, such a private life is what the university provides the scholar and the scientist. It is only proper that the university, which—significantly—has provided so many contemporary composers with their professional training and general education, should provide a home for the “complex,” “difficult,” and “problematical” in music. Indeed, the process has begun; and if it appears to proceed too slowly, I take consolation in the knowledge that in this respect, too, music seems to be in historically retarded parallel with now sacrosanct fields of endeavor. In E. T. Bell’s Men of Mathematics, we read: “In the eighteenth century the universities were not the principal centers of research in Europe. They might have become such sooner than they did but for the classical tradition and its understandable hostility to science. Mathematics was close enough to antiquity to be respectable, but physics, being more recent, was suspect. Further, a mathematician in a university of the time would have been expected to put much of his effort on elementary teaching; his research, if any, would have been an unprofitable luxury.” A simple substitution of “musical composition” for “research”, of “academic” for “classical”, of “music” for “physics,” and of “composer” for “mathematician,” provides a strikingly accurate picture of the current situation. And as long as the confusion I have described continues to exist, how can the university and its community assume other than that the composer welcomes and courts public competition with the historically certified products of the past, and the commercially certified products of the present?
Perhaps for the same reason, the various institutes of advanced research and the large majority of foundations have disregarded this music’s need for means of survival. I do not wish to appear to obscure the obvious differences between musical composition and scholarly research, although it can be contended that these differences are no more fundamental than the differences among the various fields of study.
Babbitt’s article demonstrates an unerring faith of a notion of musical ‘progress’, which he maps onto scientific research. But he does not ask what purpose the ‘complex’, ‘difficult’ and ‘problematical’ in music serves? It is not so difficult to demonstrate the wider impact and application of various types of science, but what is the equivalent for music? Over a hundred years on, Schoenberg’s atonal and dodecaphonic explorations have won only a modest following even amongst musicians, certainly compared to the more widespread valuing of music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, and others who were once viewed as members of avant-gardes. Some might cite the occasional use of atonal material in film or video games for particular effect, but this seems very modest in comparison to the claims made by Babbitt.
The polar opposite of Babbitt’s view can be found in feminist scholar Susan McClary’s essay ‘Terminal Prestige: The Case of Avant-Garde Music Composition’, Cultural Critique, No. 12 (Spring 1989), pp. 57-81, somewhat notorious in musicological circles. McClary considers the views of Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt on certain valorisations of ‘difficult’ music and its distance from mainstream audiences (though she has relatively little to say on the music itself):
Perhaps only with the twentieth-century avant-garde, however, has there been a music that has sought to secure prestige precisely by claiming to renounce all possible social functions and values [….]
This strange posture was not invented in the twentieth century, of course. It is but the reductio ad absurdum of the nineteenth-century notion that music ought to be an autonomous activity, insulated from the contamination of the outside social world. […]
In this century (especially following World War II), the “serious” composer has felt beleaguered both by the reified, infinitely repeated classical music repertory and also by the mass media that have provided the previously disenfranchised with modes of “writing” and distribution-namely recording, radio, and television. Thus even though Schoenberg, Boulez,and Babbitt differ enormously from each other in terms of socio-historical context and music style, they at least share the siege mentality that has given rise to the extreme position we have been tracing: they all regard the audience as an irrelevant annoyance whose approval signals artistic failure. [….]
By aligning his music with the intellectual elite-with what he identifies as the autonomous “private life” of scholarship and science (this at the height of the Cold War!) – Babbitt appeals to a separate economy that confers prestige, but that also (it must be added) confers financial support in the form of foundation grants and university professorships. [….]
Babbitt’s rhetoric has achieved its goal: most university music departments support resident composers (though many, including the composers in my own department, find the “Who Cares if You Listen” attitude objectionable); and the small amount of money earmarked by foundations for music commissions is reserved for the kind of “serious” music that Babbitt and his colleagues advocate.
I objected a good deal to McClary’s essay when I first read it some 20 years ago, but as time has gone on have come to felt that she is onto something important in her allusions to legitimation via alignment to scholarship and science, though the exaggerated statements about claims to autonomy are unsustainable, especially today, when so many composers seek to justify their work as much through allusions to society and politics as through its musical merits.
I mentioned earlier a review-article by Richard Taruskin which generated a lot of anger amongst new music practitioners. In a range of writings, including in the Oxford History of Western Music, Taruskin has been sharply critical about many claims made by those associated with modernism and the avant-garde to the mantle of history, and of the ways in which historiography and pedagogy has foregrounded work of this type and marginalised other varieties. Perhaps the most prominent expression of Taruskin’s view is that article which takes some CD reviews of the music of Donald Martino as its starting point, ‘How Talented Composers Become Useless’. This was first published in The New York Times on 10 March 1996, and reprinted in the collection The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2009), pp. 86-93. Like McClary, Taruskin grounds his critic in an attack on the position of Babbitt:
By comparing “serious” or “original” contemporary music to mathematics (and appropriating concepts like seriousness and originality to one kind of music was where the arrogance lay), Mr. Babbitt was saying, in effect, that such music was to be valued and judged not for the pleasure it gave but for the truth it contained. Truth, in music as in math, lay in accountability to basic principles of relatedness. In the case of math, these were axioms and theorems: basic truth assumptions and the proofs they enabled. In the case of music, truth lay in the relationship of all its details to a basic axiomatic premise called the twelve-tone row.
Again, Mr. Babbitt’s implied contempt and his claims of exclusivity apart, the point could be viewed as valid. Why not allow that there could be the musical equivalent of an audience of math professors? It was a harmless enough concept in itself—although when the math professors went on to claim funds and resources that would otherwise go to the maintenance of the “lay” repertory, it was clear that the concept did not really exist “in itself”; it inescapably impinged on social and economic concerns. Yet calling his work the equivalent of a math lecture did at least make the composer’s intentions and expectations clear. You could take them or leave them. […]
Mr. Martino’s piano music […] strives for conventional expressivity while trying to maintain all the privileged and prestigious truth claims of academic modernism. Because there is no structural connection between the expressive gestures and the twelve-tone harmonic language, the gestures are not supported by the musical content (the way they are in Schumann, for example, whose music Mr. Martino professes to admire and emulate). And while the persistent academic claim is that music like Mr. Martino’s is too complex and advanced for lay listeners to comprehend, in fact the expressive gestures, unsupported by the music’s syntax or semantics, are primitive and simplistic in the extreme. [….]
The reason it is still necessary to expose these hypocrisies, even after the vaunted “postmodern” demise of serialism, is that the old-fashioned modernist position still thrives in its old bastion, the academy. Composers like Mr. Martino are still miseducating their pupils just as he was miseducated himself, dooming them to uselessness. Critics and “theorists,” many of them similarly miseducated, are still propagandizing for Pointwise Periodic Homeomorphisms in the concert hall, offering their blandishments as consolation for the loss of a musical language and decrying the attempts of younger composers to find a new one.
Taruskin has gone on to be a leading advocate of the ‘Cold War’ view of avant-garde musical history, which maintains essentially that the institutionalisation and prestige of avant-garde music was a product of both an intellectual culture privileging quasi-scientific positivism, and was dominant in US universities, but also the conspiratorial view, which I maintain is utterly false on the basis of a lot of archival result, that the success of the Darmstadt Summer Schools for new music, and other aspects of new music in Europe, were the result of covert funding by the CIA. There is no evidence to substantiate this (unlike with some other art forms, from which information this conclusion has simply been inferred); as Ian Wellens in particular has shown, the primary CIA-funded organisation, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, had as its secretary general Nicolas Nabokov, who showed no real interest in serial and other avant-garde composition in the post-1945 era (as compared to his advocacy of the music of Stravinsky), and the events sponsored by the CCF are too exceptional and unrepresentative as to be defining in terms of the wider history. I will expand on this in a subsequent post.
A British figure who has delivered harsh critiques of new music and the prestige it entertains is Nicholas Cook, from whom I offer two citations. The first is from his ‘On Qualifying Relativism’, Musica Scientiae, vol. 5, issue 2 supplement (September 2001), pp. 167-189.
As Richard Toop (who works in Sydney but is closely associated with the European avanr-garde) points out, composition occupies very different roles in different countries. In North America it has been almost inextricably entangled with universities since the early days of Babbitt (whose “social contract”, as Herman Sabbe points out, “is with the academy”); the relationship is only a little less close in Britain, where composition is fully accepted as a form of research for purposes of institutional and national quality reviews. But in continental Europe, as Toop goes on to say, contemporary music revolves around festivals and radio stations; “One may be dealing with a heavily subsidized market place,” he adds, “but it’s a market place none the less.” Makis Solomos also raises the issue of subsidy, contrasting the subsidization of contemporary music in France with the situation in Britain (where the subsidies do exist, incidentally, but they go towards propping up the social rituals of the Royal Opera House rather than into contemporary music).
Solornos’s key observation, however, is that “en France, où les subventions existent, la musique contemporaine a un public”. It does in Britain and America too, of course, but there the audience has traditionally been one of contemporary music buffs, a niche within a niche. (One should recognize the potential for change not only through the cross-over musical styles of composers like Glass or Zorn, but also through the incorporation of contemporary music within educational and outreach programmes, which is why I said “traditionally”: all part of the crumbling of barriers to which I referred in my Foreword.) And when taking part in conferences or workshops in such countries as Holland, Belgium, and Germany I have always been struck by the centrality of contemporary composition within the definition of what “music” is and what an intelligent interest in the subject might mean: it is simply taken for granted that one has an interest in and commitment to contemporary music, in a way that it would never be in a similar situation in Britain or America. But it seems that the position of contemporary music is even more varied than this might suggest, to judge by the comments of Robert Walker (who writes from the University of New South Wales, Sydney): “it is indeed ironic”, he says,”that the academy can now include Beatles songs in analysis classes and research reports, but still not Berio’s vocal music”. And later he talks of Messiaen, Britten, Cage, and electronic music, and comments that “The music academy has shown comparatively scant interest in all this”. That surprised me, not only because new music was high on the agenda when I was teaching at Sydney University (though that was back in 1988), but also because music from Messiaen and Cage to Berio and beyond is well represented in the British academy, far beyond any possible measure of the music’s dissemination throughout society at large. It is popular music that is under-represented, resulting in a situation where the few PhDs in this area get quickly snapped up by university departments anxious to respond to the interests of their students.
The second is from ‘Writing on Music or Axes to Grind: road rage and musical community’, Music Education Research, vol. 5, no. 3 (November 2003), pp. 249-261.
Writers on contemporary ‘art’ music—what they often call ‘new music’—generally act as apologists, in the same sense as the earliest analysts did: writing in the early decades of the 19th century, these analysts’ basic purpose was to explain the coherence and hence the greatness of Beethoven’s music, despite its discontinuities and sudden irruptions and otherwise incoherent appearance (it would hardly be exaggeration to say that the whole genre of musical analysis developed as an act of advocacy for Beethoven). In the same way, writers on new music either argue that the music is aesthetically attractive even though it might appear otherwise on first acquaintance, or they argue that its aesthetic unattractiveness is integral to its cultural significance (and sometimes, just to make sure, they argue both). Their advocacy is prompted by the increasingly marginalised nature of the music—now even to some extent within academia—and this apologetic function is built into the genre: if you pick a book on new music off the shelf, you expect it to fulfil this role of advocacy, and again the few books that have attacked new music have appeared anomalous against this background. [….]
I’ve noticed that, when I go to conferences or similar events in continental Europe, people make the assumption that, because I’m interested in music, I must have an interest in and commitment to new music; that’s not an expectation about me in particular, but a taken-for-granted assumption about what it means to be seriously engaged in music. (In the UK or the USA, people make no such assumption.) And at least as far as the contributors to the Musicae Scientiae collection were concerned, this revolved not so much around the aesthetic properties of new music as its critical potential. In my book, I referred briefly to critical theory in general and Adorno in particular, as a way of introducing one of the main intellectual strands of the ‘New’ musicology of the 1990s, but I made no direct link between Adorno’s critique and new music. In her commentary, Anne Boissière (2001, p. 32) picked this up, asking why I didn’t discuss ‘the problem of contemporary music which resists consumption’: instead, she complained, I made music sound as if it was just another commodity, and in this way passed up the opportunity to offer ‘a critical analysis of consumer society’. In which case, she asked, ‘what point is there in making reference to Adorno?’: if one’s critique isn’t motivated by moral or political commitment, as Adorno’s was, then what is there to it but nihilism?
Actually, the argument Boissière is putting forward here, and which other contributors also reflected, has a long and rather peculiar history. It originates in the conservative critique of the modern world—the attack on capitalism and consumerism that developed throughout the German-speaking countries in the 19th century (where it was associated with the nostalgic values of an idealised rural past), and fed ultimately into the Nazi creed of ‘blood and soil’.
There are many ripostes to the views of McClary, Taruskin and Cook, just as there are to that of Babbitt, or those advocates of latter day composition-as-research who essentially adhere to his view. In subsequent posts I will consider some of these in more detail.
But for now, I just want to end with a plea for moderation. New music is a niche interest; this much appears very clear, and there is little evidence of such a situation changing. Can we accept this, and move away from both the unmediated and exaggerated claims for its centrality of Babbitt, the hatred and aggression towards dissenters, but also the types of denunciations of McClary, Taruskin and Cook, often clothed in ferocious political language (as with Cook’s attempts to link Boissière to the Nazis, to which I have alluded on here before)?
Those involved in new music who enjoy institutional prestige and economic wherewithal because of existing situations are unlikely to be sympathetic to any view which questions their status. Nor are those who jealously covet such a thing from different fields likely to have any sympathy towards them. Neither of these groups are likely to engage in mature scholarly debate. But such a debate ought to be possible without degenerating into polarised oppositions, including some of those presented above.
Reflections on Richard Taruskin and Performance – statement given at Performance Studies Conference, 2 July 2022
Posted: July 14, 2022 Filed under: Academia, Culture, Germany, Higher Education, History, Music - General, Musical Education, Musicology, New Music | Tags: Academy of Ancient Music, Alfredo Casella, Anthony Gritten, Arnold Dolmetsch, Aulos Ensemble, Bach Defended Against His Devotees, Baroque music, beethoven, Bruce Haynes, Byrd, Cappella Nova, Celia Applegate, Chaikovsky, christopher fox, Christopher Hogwood, Christopher Page, Claire Fedoruk, CMPCP, Columbia University, Columbia University Collegium Musicum, daniel leech wilkinson, Dorottya Fabian, eva moreda rodriguez, franklin cox, Franz Brüggen, George BArth, German music, Gustav Leonhardt, Harry Haskell, Hindemith, j.p.e. harper-scott, James Garratt, john adams, john eliot gardiner, John Rink, José Ortega y Gassett, Joshua Fineberg, Julian Hellaby, Julian Johnson, Katharine Ellis, lawrence kramer, Louis Andriessen, Misha Mengelberg, modernism, Musica Antiqua Köln, Musorgsky, Neue Sachlichkeit, New Music, nicholas cook, Nick Wilson, nikolaus harnoncourt, Ockeghem, Paul Henry Lang, Performance Studies, Performance Studies Network, Peter Walls, Playing with History, Practice-Research, Reinbert de Leeuw, Reinhard Goebel, Renaissance music, richard taruskin, Robert Adlington, Russian Music, shostakovich, Solomon Volkov, Stefan Knapik, Stravinsky, Testimony, Text and Act, The CLemencic Consort, The Danger of Music, The Death of Klinghoffer, The Early Music Consort of London, The End of Early Music, The Oxford History of Western Music, The Pianist as Orator, The Routledge Research Companion to Modernism in Music, Theodor W. Adorno, Thomas Binckley, Trevor Pinnock, Ultima Festival, William Weber 4 CommentsDuring the 2022 conference of the Performance Studies Network, which took place at the University of Surrey from 30 June to 3 July, the news was received of the sad death of musicologist Richard Taruskin (2 April 1945 – 1 July 2022). His writings on performance, especially those collected in the volume Text and Act, have been hugely influential. With this in mind, I had the idea of assembling an impromptu roundtable of scholars present at the conference with an interest in him and his work. This roundtable, which I chaired, took place on the afternoon of Saturday 2 July, featuring Claire Fedoruk, Anthony Gritten, Julian Hellaby, George Kennaway, Lina Navickaite-Martinelli, John Rink and Eva Moreda Rodriguez. It ranged in scope from personal memories and anecdotes, through details of first encounters with his work, to wider scholarly critiques, but also generated a remarkable amount of consensus. The organisers of the conference hope at some point soon to assemble version of the various statements given on the conference website. For now, I am posting here my introductory overview of Taruskin’s life and work, and then my own statement for the roundtable, both with just minor edits and corrections.
Personally, despite many major differences with Taruskin on a range of things, his work was deeply important for me and also for teaching purposes. I only met him once, at the Ultima Festival in Oslo in 2015, where I was performing and he was delivering a lecture. This meeting was very cordial; we also corresponded a little by e-mail, not least in the last months of his life. This correspondence could be both cordial and uncordial! But I would always continue to read every new article or book from him.
The following is my overview of Richard Taruskin’s life and work:
Richard Taruskin was born in New York on 2 April 1945. He grew up in a moderately musical household; his mother taught violin and his father played the piano at an amateur level. He studied cello growing up and went to study at Columbia University in 1965 where he continued from Bachelor’s to Doctoral level, receiving a PhD in historical musicology in 1976, working with musicologist Paul Henry Lang. That he was part of a ‘sixties generation’, a student during that period, is something often overlooked, but I think is significant in terms of various iconoclastic aspects of his subsequent thought and work. He taught at Columbia until 1987, when he was appointed Professor of Music at University of California, Berkeley, where he remained for the rest of his life, eventually becoming Emeritus Professor.
In the earlier stage of his career Taruskin was also active first as a choral conductor, overseeing the Columbia University Collegium Musicum, and making recordings with them and Cappella Nova, such as those of Ockeghem and Byrd. He was also a viola da gamba player and toured as a soloist with Aulos Ensemble through to the late 1980s. As such, he was deeply involved in the early music world, of which he would become one of the leading critics.
Taruskin’s first book was Opera and Drama in Russia: As Preached and Practied in the 1860s (1981), establishing a scholarly basis for this body of work which was then relatively obscure to Anglophone musicians and scholars. His work on Russian music in general, which spanned several centuries of work, would be extended in his collection Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue (1992), his mammoth two-volume study of Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions (1996), the important volume of essays Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (1997), and two later collections of journalistic and academic essays, On Russian Music (2009) and Russian Music at Home and Abroad (2016). He was a prominent protagonist in scholarly debates on such issues as the nature of Chaikovsky’s death, or the veracity of Solomon Volkov’s memoir of Shostakovich, Testimony.
Taruskin was also a journalist and ‘public musicologist’, writing regularly in particularly for The New York Times. Both in this capacity and also as a contributor to scholarly fora, Taruskin wrote regularly on performance and issues relating in particular to historically-informed performance (or ‘authentic performance’ or ‘period performance’, to use two terms now rather out of fashion but still common at the time Taruskin was writing). He was sharply critical of some of the work in this realm, in both musical and methodological terms, with a special focus on the work done by British performers and ensembles, not least Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music. One of his key essays on this subject, ‘The Pastness of the Present and the Presence of the Past’, was collected in an 1988 symposium edited by Nicholas Kenyon, Authenticity and Early Music, and then in 1995 Taruskin collected all his major writings on the subject in a collection entitled Text and Act. Amongst his key arguments were those relating to the fragmentary, ambiguous, contradictory and inconclusive nature of documentary evidence into historical performance, and perhaps most significantly he created a range of dualisms, such as between ‘vitalist’ and ‘geometric’ performance, concluding from this that many supposedly ‘historical’ approaches actually represented modernist aesthetics, especially those associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit and the neo-classical Stravinsky.
Taruskin continued to be a prominent public intellectual throughout his career, generating much attention through wider op-eds and pronouncements on music in public fora, such as his support for the cancellation of a performance of John Adams’ opera The Death of Klinghoffer in 2001, following the attacks of 9/11.
His major later work was undoubtedly the mammoth sole-authored six-volume The Oxford History of Western Music, first published in 2005, when Taruskin was 60. A hugely comprehensive but also highly contentious work, which overhauled all sorts of previous practices for history writing, Taruskin claimed a new dispassion and objectivity for his enterprise, in contrast to earlier writers. I am sure various people will have a variety of views on this type of claim.
For the rest of his life and career, Taruskin’s work was mostly occupied with some new essays and assembling new collections of others, in the volumes The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays, (2008), and Cursed Question: On Music and its Social Practices (2020). Amongst these were a notorious review-article of Cambridge Histories of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music, ‘Speed Bumps’ (2005) which led to a quite exasperated response by Nicholas Cook. Another important article was ‘The Musical Mystique’ (2007), a review-article of books by Julian Johnson, Joshua Fineberg and Lawrence Kramer all considering the place of classical music today, with quite ferocious critiques of some of these. He was also of course a highly regular conference attendee and guaranteed to enliven proceedings.
The following is the statement I delivered at the roundtable.
I have found myself led towards engagement with Taruskin’s work of various types throughout my own career as performer and musicologist. His work on performance is obviously relevant to me as a scholar of historically-informed performance and performance studies, but also as one whose research has much to do with twentieth-century Germany, in light of Taruskin’s views on that region and its music. Also, when working on issues to do with the historiography of music, I could not fail to engage with Taruskin’s thoughts on that, and the ways in which they inform the Oxford History, not least in terms of new music and its place both in repertoire and music history and pedagogy. But I can say that his models and approaches for nineteenth- and twentieth century music history have had a profound impact on how I write and teach about it. Without them, I would not have had the same inspiration towards teaching a core music history module which tried to move away from technocratic and teleological approaches, focused above all on advances in compositional technique, towards broader approaches which do not overly privilege this line of development and attempt to give equal consideration to musical developments in terms of their social and political context, though in a less didactic fashion than Taruskin. Also, as one who teaches much about nineteenth-century music, not least opera, Taruskin’s writings on that area are regular set readings for my students.
But I want to focus on Taruskin’s thoughts on performance, the bulk of which are contained within Text and Act. He did occasionally return to the subject in some later essays, amongst the most interesting of which I would suggest is ‘Of Kings and Divas’ (1993), collected in The Danger of Music, a review-article of a range of recordings of French baroque music. But to the best of my knowledge Taruskin never wrote or spoke at length about later developments in the fields of performance studies, including the relationship between analysis and performance, ethnomusicological approaches, practice-research and Artistic Research, or the various work emerging from the research clusters in the UK CHARM and CMPCP, especially relating to the study of early recordings. Certainly Taruskin did write on early recordings earlier in his career, but not when the study of them had become a much more extensively developed field of scholarship. The heart of his work on performance has to do with historically-informed performance, the culture of early music, and the ways in which these came to encroach upon the performance of a good deal of mainstream repertoire.
One thing which is striking upon returning to Taruskin on performance, with knowledge of his later writings, is his at least partial advocacy of Adorno’s view (though Adorno was writing in a different time and context), and how strongly his critique of HIP is explicitly related to its anti-German tendencies. He only appears to have engaged with Adorno’s views as found in the essay ‘Bach Defended Against His Devotees’ (1951), not the Theory of Musical Reproduction, which was not available in either German or English at the time of most of Taruskin’s writings on performance.
I do not believe it would be unfair to say that Taruskin held frequently negative views about many things British. His writings on the historically-informed performance movement frequently dealt with the work of the likes of Christopher Hogwood, Roger Norrington, Trevor Pinnock, John Eliot Gardiner and their associated ensembles. He did also, for sure, consider some Austrian, German, Belgian and Dutch early music protagonists, most notably in a piece on the Harnoncourt-Leonhardt series of Bach Cantatas (‘Facing Up, Finally, to Bach’s Dark Vision’ (1991), reproduced in Text and Act), but these were generally treated as the periphery with the British scene as the centre. Taruskin also had little to say about the later growth of HIP elsewhere, especially France (except for in the essay I mentioned before) and Italy.
Yet I believe that the Austrian, Belgian and Dutch early music performance scenes were a central component of the wider international scene for as long as the British, even if some of the associated writings were less familiar to British and American scholars, as few were translated for a long time.
Taruskin’s views on German matters in this context were less wide-reaching; I am not aware of his considering in depth the problematic status of medieval music in Germany after 1945 following its appropriation by parts of the youth movement in the Third Reich. While various movements there which were already active in the 1920s, in regional centres such as Munich, Cologne and Freiburg, continued after 1945 to a limited extent, the growth of many a new Studio für alte Musik went alongside a similar Studio für neue Musik, as a means of resituating a realm of musical activity in a context which, rightly or wrongly, was for a period associated with opposition to fascism. But it is also surely no coincidence that one of the most important German groups for medieval music to be founded in the early post-war era, the Studio der frühen Musik in Munich, was led not by a German but an American, Thomas Binkley.
Taruskin did certainly engage with some aspects of a historically-informed performance and early music movement prior to around the 1960s, but in a fragmentary manner. In this he was no different to plenty of other scholars, but the appearance of Harry Haskell’s The Early Music Revival: A History in 1988 demonstrated the breadth and depth of a movement which can be traced back well into the nineteenth-century. Since Haskell, there has been a wide range of important wider scholarship – such as Katharine Ellis’s work on early music in France in the nineteenth century, Celia Applegate’s study of Mendelssohn and the Bach Revival, James Garratt on the German Palestrina Revival, William Weber’s study of concert programming, or various studies of individual musicians who contributed to revivals of earlier repertoire and performing styles. All of this could contribute to a new comprehensive history to succeed Haskell’s, which would I believe place the questions which Taruskin raises in a more nuanced context.
At the heart of Taruskin’s arguments are the conviction that historicist approaches are part of a modernist project, which he sets in opposition to earlier tendencies. But I believe this argument is founded upon too homogeneous a view of earlier traditions. Taruskin was without question aware of the extent to which Germanic constructions of musical subjectivity had more limited application in other regions in the nineteenth century, but was not prepared to go the extra mile and consider that some of what he constructs as ‘modern’ or ‘neo-classical’ might have deeper historical roots. That Chaikovsky’s neo-classicism might in some ways resemble Stravinsky’s is something I would not have imagined Taruskin denying, but he could have done more to draw the implications of this for a historical model.
Taruskin’s work on performance has certainly had its critics, or those who have presented alternative views. John Butt, in his book Playing with History (2003), offers a quite witty response to Taruskin’s self-presentation as a champion of consumers’ rights as against the ideals of historically-informed performers. Butt conflates this position with an advocacy of market forces, which is not strictly accurate. But nonetheless, he notes that in purely consumer terms, Taruskin’s arguments do not necessarily hold up – as he puts it ‘someone must have bought all those records’ (of Christopher Hogwood). Other important responses to the gauntlets laid down by Taruskin include those of Peter Walls, in his History, Imagination and the Performance of Music (2003), or Bruce Haynes, in his The End of Early Music (2007), which shares some of Taruskin’s view of ‘modernist’ performance. This is presented in an over-homogenised manner, in my opinion, by Haynes, as also by Nicholas Cook and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, but this view has been challenged by some of the work of Dorottya Fabian. Haynes however creates a tripartite formulation of ‘romantic’, ‘modern’ and ‘period’ styles, the contrast between the second and third of which is at odds with Taruskin’s model. Nick Wilson, in his The Art of Re-Enchantment: Making Early Music in the Modern Age (2013), presents a quite different picture of the early music subculture than that at least implied by Taruskin. More recently Stefan Knapik, in a chapter in The Routledge Research Companion to Modernism in Music (2018) dealing with violin playing has shown how problematic are Taruskin’s dualisms, on the basis of wider reading of treatises.
I would say that Taruskin’s model is both British-centered and also centered upon a particular state of play which existed in the 1970s and 1980s, which is not unnatural as some of his first writings date from this time. We certainly know a good deal more now about ‘modernist’ performance from the early twentieth century, but Taruskin was definitely onto something by making the link with Stravinsky, Hindemith and other early twentieth-century figures, including José Ortega y Gassett or Ezra Pound, not primarily associated with music (referencing Pound’s interest in Arnold Dolmetsch and the particular culture around him and his work). That these and others such as Alfredo Casella, Gian Francesco Malipiero or Carl Orff were very significant in terms of the revival of some Renaissance and Baroque music is clearly documented. Hindemith, amazingly listed by ethnomusicologist Henry Kingsbury as an example of a composer who did not also perform, was not only a leading viola player involved in premieres of works from Webern to Walton, but also a prime moving force in the development of early music at Yale University after his relocation to the United States.
What is described most harshly as the ‘sewing machine’ style of baroque performance in mid-century grew out of some of the objectivist ideals of these composers and their interactions with the interwar early music scene. Adorno’s notorious essay was a response to this, and entirely in line with his own antipathy towards Stravinsky and Hindemith. But performance styles did change, and in some ways the branch of historically-informed performance which developed from this point was in some ways a reaction against this, seeking more nuanced and stylistically aware approaches through excavation of historical data. Taruskin’s all-purpose ‘modernist’ model takes too little account of these changing tendencies. There was of course also the radical shift in the 1970s away from the more ‘counter-cultural’ approach to early music associated with Binkley’s group in Munich, The Early Music Consort of London, and the Clemencic Consort towards the more austere a cappella approach pioneered by British groups in the 1970s, of which Christopher Page was the most eloquent spokesperson. Taruskin considers Page’s work in one essay, ‘High, Sweet, and Loud’ (1987) (reproduced in Text and Act), but does not really filter this shift into his wider arguments. All of these things point to the fact that the early music movement has been – and continues to be – a diffuse and diverse movement. Occasionally Taruskin acknowledges this, as in his contrasting of the ‘crooked’ work of Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln with some of their more ‘straight’ British counterparts, but does not draw the wider implications that would have been possible from a wider and more generous perspective.
What would have strengthened Taruskin’s arguments is the considerable cross-fertilisation between the early and new music worlds in the Netherlands in the 1960s, with common cause found between the likes of conductor and recorder/flute player Franz Brüggen, and the new generation involving individuals such as Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw and Misha Mengelberg. All were united in antipathy to what they perceived as a conservative Dutch musical scene with pronounced Germanic elements, and espousing an objectivist style, in part influenced by American jazz and wider aspects of an idealised view of Americana, not dissimilar to the view of the Neue Sachlichkeit and others associated with Amerikanismus in Germany in the 1920s. In this Dutch context we absolutely see a commonality of purpose between those in early and new music, though married to a particular far left politics which I doubt Taruskin would have shared. To be fair, though, much of the information on this period in musical history was little known other than to Dutch specialists until recent work such as that of Robert Adlington, not available at the time Taruskin was writing. But it could fruitfully feed into reevaluations of Taruskin’s arguments.
Part of the problem is Taruskin’s tendency to employ a monolithic view of ‘modernism’, which he knew as well as anyone constituted a heterogenous body of music and aesthetic thought. But the tendency to employ an all-purpose conception of ‘modernism’ as a rhetorical strategy for dismissing musical work, in the process knowing the populist implications of so doing, was a shame. Few now would surely deny that Stravinsky and Schoenberg represented very different musical tendencies, and charged debates between factions associated with either have informed musical discourse since the mid-1920s. But Taruskin was not above associating one with ‘modernism’ and then using this as a stick to beat the other.
Taruskin’s views on many things German, which could translate into blanket remarks about European culture and thought, could have a waspish and xenophobic tint to them (which he would have been the first to condemn if applied to other regions or peoples), akin to the thought of Brexiteers and American neo-conservatives, especially in his later work. For one so unafraid to speak harshly of others, sometimes in ways I believe were ad hominem, Taruskin would cry foul if others did the same. In one article, he presented four of us, J.P.E. Harper-Scott, Christopher Fox, Franklin Cox and myself (all except Cox British), as his arch-opponents, almost as if part of a conspiracy. But I do believe the critiques of all of these were fundamentally about Taruskin’s work. My view may be more generous than some of the others, especially Harper-Scott, though I concur with some aspects of the latter’s critique, especially of Taruskin’s sometimes quite fanatical anti-German pronouncements, such as in ‘Speed Bumps’.
Taruskin’s knowledge of and interest in new music was, by many accounts of those who spoke to him about it at length, considerably more rich and nuanced than one would necessarily discern from some of his writings. He took, for example, a great interest in the work of Belgian pianist and musicologist Luk Vaes in the work of Mauricio Kagel. I regret that he did not write more from this perspective, though can see how it might have seemed uncharacteristic in the context of the wider views he frequently expressed.
Taruskin had a striking ability to identify the fundamental issues at stake in many scholarly and other musical debates without obfuscation. As a result his writing can be very direct and clearly expressed. Furthermore, he did not shy from viewing music in social, historical and political context, including specifically in relation to its meanings today. He was not one simply to take the views of composers or performers at face value, and recognised musicians’ self-fashioning immediately. All of this, from when I first encountered his work, was a breath of fresh air in the context of what I found, and still find in some ways, a rather stultified musical and academic culture in the UK, in which so much depends upon saying the right things to the right people with power rather than entering into more trenchant debate on the basis of conviction, with passive-aggressive demands to conform to prevailing group-think, and where short-term demands of pleasing others can supersede quests for truth.
As time went on and I became more familiar with his work, I came to realise that Taruskin was not however someone with whose work I would associate a balanced examination of evidence and a measured conclusion. The very possibility of moderate conclusions also appeared to elude him. Both of these things are very significant flaws in a scholar, I believe, but also characteristic of a polarised scholarly world. Taruskin was highly critical of others for drawing wide conclusions from fragmentary information, but was far from averse from doing the same himself to ram home points. An example would be his arguments about tempo flexibility in Beethoven Symphonies (in ‘Resisting the Ninth’ (1988-89), in Text and Act), which depend heavily on the account by Anton Schindler, with just token recognition of the various information which points to the unreliability of Schindler as a source. I would contrast this with the thorough examination of the conflicting accounts of Beethoven by Schindler and Carl Czerny in George Barth’s book The Pianist as Orator (1992), which also arrives at a conclusion that some of what Schindler claimed may be correct, but Barth does so on far stronger scholarly grounds.
Nonetheless, I believe Taruskin was a very worthy opponent and without doubt a tremendously significant figure in the landscape of musicology, from whom I will greatly miss the possibility of reading new writings.
Desiring Progress 