The Value of Music Today

Music between Humanism and Commercialization

 

The congress – held thanks to an initiative of Musicology (Musicologia) in collaboration with the Athens Goethe Institute – was the first major international congress of musicology that took place in Greece. Several prominent scholars from Greece and abroad (university professors, academicians and personalities of musical life) participated.

The congress title declares the issues under discussion and its objective as well: although the humanistic character of music is crystallized and expressed through processes of creation and perception, mediation and evaluation, the main feature of the contemporary social reality for both musicians and recipients is commercialization.

The contributors analyzed this issue in terms of the “value” of music itself, as well as in terms of the values in contemporary societies, raising a point concerning the social functions and humanistic dimensions of music under the current conditions. Focal point of the discussion was the reconstruction of the historical, philosophical, epistemological, ideological and critical concepts that could help us to approach the evolution of the notions “humanism” and “commercialization”.

We hope that the congress proceedings, released by Orpheus editions, will spark off the research, the interdisciplinary communication and the discussion on the causes and functions of music today.

Musicology (Musicologia) expresses its thanks to the Goethe Institute in Athens and particularly to the institute director Mr. Horst Deinwallner, to his tireless collaborators, as well as to the life and soul of the Institute, the music-lover Mrs. Andrea Schellinger, who made the congress possible. Musicology (Musicologia) is also thankful to the musicians and colleagues, who organized and performed the concert that concluded the congress with compositions of the 20^th century.

In this web site you may find the paper abstracts, notes about the contributors, a detailed congress program, as well as information about the proceedings volume.

 

© Musicology