Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891-1961: Scholars, Singers, Missionaries

Anna Maria Busse Berger's book reassesses the history of musicology, unearthing its twentieth-century German and global roots. It explores unseen historical relationships between the modern rediscovery of medieval music, the rise of communal singing, and African music's intersection with missionary work in the German colonial period. The book offers a monumental new account of early twentieth-century music culture in Germany and East Africa.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 360 pages
\n Publication date: 30 October 2020
\n Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
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This groundbreaking book reevaluates the history of musicology, unveiling its twentieth-century German and global roots. In the process, Anna Maria Busse Berger unveils previously unseen historical connections, such as the modern rediscovery of medieval music, the rise of communal singing, and the ways in which African music intersected with missionary work in the German colonial period. Ultimately, Busse Berger presents a monumental new account of the early twentieth-century music culture in Germany and East Africa.

The book unfolds in three parts. Busse Berger begins with the origins of comparative musicology circa 1900, when early proponents used ideas from comparative linguistics to test whether parallels could be drawn between nonwestern and medieval European music. She then turns to youth movements of the era, including the Wandervogel, Jugendmusikbewegung, and Singbewegung, whose focus on joint music-making influenced many musicologists. Finally, she considers case studies of Protestant and Catholic mission societies in what is now Tanzania, where missionaries, many of them musicologists and former youth-group members, extended the discipline via ethnographic research and a focus on local music and communities.

In highlighting these long-overlooked transnational connections and the role of global music in early musicology, Busse Berger shapes a fresh conception of music scholarship during a pivotal part of the twentieth century.

\n Weight: 612g\n
Dimension: 160 x 240 x 29 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780226740348\n \n