Introduction:

The History of What?

The argument    is  no  other   than    to  inquire and collect out of  the records of  all time    what    particular  kinds   of

learning    and arts    have    flourished  in  what    ages    and regions of  the world,  their   antiquities,    their   progresses, their

migrations  (for    sciences    migrate like    nations)    over    the different   parts   of  the globe;  and again   their   decays,

disappearances, and revivals;   [and    also]   an  account of  the principal   authors,    books,  schools,    successions,

academies,  societies,  colleges,   orders—in   a   word,   everything  which   relates to  the state   of  learning.   Above   all

things, I   wish    events  to  be  coupled with    their   causes. All this    I   would   have    handled in  a   historical  way,    not wasting

time,   after   the manner  of  critics,    in  praise  and blame,  but simply  narrating   the fact    historically,   with    but slight

intermixture    of  private judgment.   For the manner  of  compiling   such    a   history I   particularly    advise  that    the matter

and provision   of  it  be  not drawn   from    histories   and commentaries    alone;  but that    the principal   books   written in

each    century,    or  perhaps in  shorter periods,    proceeding  in  regular order   from    the earliest    ages,   be  themselves

taken   into    consultation;   that    so  (I  do  not say by  a   complete    perusal,    for that    would   be  an  endless labour, but)    by

tasting them    here    and there,  and observing   their   argument,   style,  and method, the Literary    Spirit  of  each    age may

be  charmed as  it  were    from    the dead.

—FRANCIS    BACON,  D   E   DIGNITATE   ET  AUGMENTIS   SCIENTIARUM LIBRI   IX  (1623)^1

Mutatis mutandis, Bacon’s task was mine. He never lived to complete it; I have—but only by dint of a

drastic narrowing of scope. My mutanda are stated in my title (one not chosen but granted; and for that
honor I extend my thanks to the Delegates of the Oxford University Press). For “learning and the arts”
substitute music. For “the different parts of the globe” substitute Europe, joined in Volume 3 by America.
(That is what we still casually mean by “the West,” although the concept is undergoing sometimes curious
change: a Soviet music magazine I once subscribed to gave news of the pianist Yevgeny Kissin’s
“Western debut”—in Tokyo.) And as for antiquities, they hardly exist for music. (Jacques Chailley’s
magnificently titled conspectus, 40,000 ans de musique, got through the first 39,000 years—I exaggerate
only slightly—on its first page.^2 )

Still, as the sheer bulk of this offering attests, a lot was left, because I took seriously Bacon’s
stipulations that causes be investigated, that original documents be not only cited but analyzed (for their
“argument, style, and method”) and that the approach should be catholic and as near exhaustive as
possible, based not on my preferences but on my estimation of what needed to be included in order to
satisfy the dual requirement of causal explanation and technical explication. Most books that call
themselves histories of Western music, or of any of its traditional “style periods,” are in fact surveys,
which cover—and celebrate—the relevant repertoire, but make little effort truly to explain why and how
things happened as they did. This set of books is an attempt at a true history.

Paradoxically, that means it does not take “coverage” as its primary task. A lot of famous music goes
unmentioned in these pages, and even some famous composers. Inclusion and omission imply no judgment
of value here. I never asked myself whether this or that composition or musician was “worth mentioning,”
and I hope readers will agree that I have sought neither to advocate nor to denigrate what I did include.

But there is something more fundamental yet to explain, given my claim of catholicity. Coverage of all
the musics that have been made in Europe and America is obviously neither the aim of this book nor its
achievement. A glance at the table of contents will instantly confirm, to the inevitable disappointment and
perhaps consternation of some, that “Western music” here means what it has always meant in general
academic histories: it means what is usually called “art music” or “classical music,” and looks
suspiciously like the traditional canon that has come under so much justified fire for its long-unquestioned
dominance of the academic curriculum (a dominance that is now in irreversible process of decline). A