Publisher's Synopsis
After a century of trial-and-error in the task of defining itself, the discipline of musicology had gradually gained a hard-won place on American university campuses. Now the musicological curriculum is being challenged by such phenomena as political correctness, questioning the canon, and ethnomusicological expansions or contractions of the traditional boundaries of historical musicology. These challenges are caused, says the author of this book, by the most powerful social force of our time-namely, the ambition to foster or restore individual cultural, ethnic, and political identities. Step by step, Professor Helm has shown the importance of upgrading undergraduate music programs. Graduate training in musicology would make a quantum leap ahead if `undergraduate' curricula in music were properly overhauled to make room for that rare undergraduate who is gifted as both musician and scholar.... If the current E-mail of American musicologists is any indication, the topic of the musical canon is hotter than ever.
