The Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology: On the Construction, Function, and Discursive Career of a Narrative in the Historiography of Austrian Musicology

The concept of the Vienna School of Comparative Musicology, later renamed as Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology, plays an important role in received historical accounts of musicology in twentieth-century Austria (used as shorthand for the various political entities to which the territory of post-World War II Austria belonged). The concept was developed in the second half of the twentieth century, most notably by Walter Graf (1903–1982) and Franz Födermayr (1933–2020), both former professors of comparative(-systematic) musicology at the University of Vienna. Proponents of this concept point to Richard Wallaschek (1860–1917) and especially Robert Lach (1874–1958) as the founders of the school and emphasize the synthetic character of the Vienna School, combining approaches from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The Vienna School of Comparative-Systematic Musicology can be analyzed as a historiographical narrative, as a coherent story of how a particular branch of Austrian musicology developed over time, mostly as a kind of “Whig history.” This paper examines key aspects of this narrative: Who contributed to its construction? How did the narrative evolve over time? Which scholars, institutions, and types of research are part of the narrative? Which are excluded or appear only as supporting characters? How is this particular form of comparative-systematic musicology represented in relation to other forms and schools of (comparative) musicology? What discursive function(s) did this narrative serve? How was it received? And to what extent has it remained relevant in the present?