The Online Program of events for the 2025 AMS-SMT Joint Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
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AMS Global Music History Study Group Keynote: Examining the Construction of Continental and Hemispheric Categories in Music History: 'European Music' and 'Western Music'
Time:
Saturday, 08/Nov/2025:
9:00am - 10:30am
Location: Northstar Ballroom B
Session Topics:
AMS
Presentations
AMS Global Music History Study Group Keynote: Examining the Construction of Continental and Hemispheric Categories in Music History: 'European Music' and 'Western Music'
Chair(s): Hedy Law (The University of British Columbia) , Ireri Chávez Bárcenas (Bowdoin College) , Daniel Castro Pantoja (Emory University)
Discussant(s): Diane Oliva (The University of Michigan) , Parkorn Wangpaiboonkit (Cornell University)
Presenter(s): David RM Irving (ICREA & Institució Milà i Fontanals de Recerca en Humanitats, CSIC)
Organized by the AMS Global Music History Study Group.
The AMS Global Music History Study Group special session will feature a 30-minute keynote address by David RM Irving based on his recent book The Making of European Music in the Long Eighteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2024). The keynote address will be followed by two 10-minute responses by Diane Oliva and Parkorn Wangpaiboonkit. The session will conclude with a 15-minute Q&A.
"Examining the Construction of Continental and Hemispheric Categories in Music History: 'European Music' and 'Western Music'"
When did people who called themselves “Europeans” and “Westerners” begin to describe certain sonic artforms as “European music” and “Western music,” using a compound term involving a proper adjective? Moreover, what defined “Europe” and “the West,” and who were the “Europeans” or the “Westerners”? Recent research suggests that “European music” was published for the first time in a European language in 1687, and that it was used sporadically until the 1770s. “Western music,” before the nineteenth century, implied the vocal liturgical music of the Christian churches that were not Orthodox. It seems to have taken on the meanings usually associated with it today (as a broad system of musical practices) from the 1830s. (An early use of “Western art-music,” using a hyphen, is dated to 1915.) The emergence of these culturally self-referential concepts within European languages—at least, those languages that were dominant in publishing on music, and especially in producing travel writing—took place in contexts of ethnographic comparison across continents, and usually in line with colonialist hubris. Early modern literature mentioning intercontinental musical comparisons also ascribed the notions of “progress,” “perfection,” and “modernity” to certain musics of Europe.
Given that “European music” and “Western music” arose relatively recently, and as a direct result of colonialist activities and ambitions worldwide, can musicologists continue to use these concepts uncritically, or apply them to repertories that pre-date their emergence? Tracing the trajectory of these terms within European-language historiography is perhaps one way in which musicologists can attempt to dismantle or mitigate the harmful effects of essentialism, Eurocentrism, and exceptionalism in discourses on “European music” and “Western music.”
