Music And Society Since 1815 Chinese Translation And Book Review

As is well known, western musical history has always been focusing on great composers and things closely related to great composers. It seems, for students majoring in western musical history, that things about styles, genres and composers are truly important and on the top of their learning list. Unfortunately, this kind of learning method becomes a stereotype that exists in quite a long period. Situation in China is serious as well, or probably even worse.Until 1970s, besides history of styles, genres, composers and ideologies, a more compromising writing method of musical history——social history of music——appeared. Its aim is not to show the qualified parts of western musical history, nor to make intellectual demands on semi-scholars. It explores the interaction process of music and society. This is not only the result of the development of interdisciplinary research, which requires a wider research horizon, but also the result of the re-scientization of music. Scholars, dissatisfied by the un-comprehensive western musical history, found an indirect, but interesting researching method.History of musical society is regarded as the supplement of normal western musical history. It will definitely not replace normal musical history. Musical history will be more comprehensive and understandable if interactions between music and society are included. Henry Raynor provided us an effective reference about musical history writing. In some sense, he avoided facing up to really musical issues, but he offered an all-round thinking perspective for musical research. It is a great method that clearly presents a social landscape in music, and a musical scene in society.