A Profile for American Musicology

Abstract

44 WHAT IS THE PURPOSE of humanistic scholarship? What, in fact, does humanist scholar do? These sanguine editorial questions introduce and define scope of Princeton Studies of Humanistic Scholarship in America-fourteen books-in-progress appraising condition of various humanistic disciplines in this country. aim of these volumes is present a critical account of American humanistic scholarship in recent decades. They have been commissioned by Council of Humanities, Whitney J. Oates, Chairman, of Princeton University and were made possible by a grant from Ford Foundation.2 Certain of books may be thought glut certain of fields, but one on musicology fills into a void; joint study by Frank Ll. Harrison, Mantle Hood, and Claude Palisca has been welcomed and very rightly praised as a milestone in history of discipline. There have been few deeply-considered statements about American musicology-distressingly few, I should say, in recent years. The general un-selfconsciousness of American musicology perhaps reflects its newness as a field of study; much more discussion of aims and principles and premises is needed, as well as of actual working methods. Starting discussion is first great virtue of Musicology volume, which I am gratefully paying a small tribute in form of present address. is purpose of humanistic scholarship? What, in fact, does humanist scholar do? The Musicology volume answers second of these questions far better than first. The field has been defined in very comprehensive ways, as Professor Palisca points out, but when all is said and done, the musicologist is first and foremost a historian. What serves this particular variety of historian as a goal or as a goad, Palisca never makes very clear; perhaps that is tacitly contained in term history, or perhaps musicologists themselves are not so very clear about it. As for Dr. Harrison, he frankly set himself job not of just answering questions, but of casting around and nudging us a little in one particular direction. That direction is towards a social aim. Without such an ideal, Harrison remarks in a terrifying aside, musicology seems merely to

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